Somebody's always watching
by ThePink1 at Reefside.Net
Summary: In Forks for her creepy cousin's wedding, Cornelia is taken by a serial killer. Can W.i.t.c.h. and the Cullens find her in time? Jasper/Alice, Cornelia/Peter. WARNING: Rating may go up!
1. Takeoff

"_Somebody's always watching …"_

A Twilight / W.i.t.c.h. Crossover

By: _A J_

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

Chapter 1

Cornelia added another pair of summer shoes to her carry-on. '_Those'll go better with the other top,'_ she thought, surveying her luggage. She was reclosing the suitcases when her bratty not-so-little sister came in.

"Jeesh, got enough packed, Corny, or do you just want me to zap your whole closet to us when we get to Forks?" Cornelia growled. Irma was _so_ dead when she got back from this wedding.

"Don't call me Cor … just … are you packed, _Mei_-_mei?"_ she asked, giving her sister 'the Eye'.

"Ha! Like, an _hour_ ago."

"Good. You can get this one for me," Cornelia said, skidding her carry-on across her floor to Lillian. Hoisting her other two gigantic suitcases effortlessly, she started forward, only to have to stop where the younger blonde girl was still standing, and giving Cornelia 'the Eye' right back.

"Why do you bother?" Lillian asked. "I know you can get that one just as easily as those two with your powers." Cornelia mentally added a certain Chinese aspiring artist to her potential murder victim list. Hay and Elyon had had the brilliant idea to use the bedtime story Cornelia and Matt had started off telling the pre-adolescent Heart of Earth to start a comic book, starring the Guardians and her Regents in fictional adventures that would tell Lillian about her powers, how to use them, and (most importantly) how to resist the temptations of abusing them.

Unfortunately, it meant that her bratty sister also knew what they were capable of, now that Lillian had figured out the stories were _true_. So she wasn't taking any grief from Cornelia about not having enough hands for her luggage unless … "Look, _Mei-mei_, _you_ may know that, but Mom and Dad _don't,_ so pretend with me, okay? _Besides_," Cornelia whispered. _"Even with telekinesis, these things are heavy! Soooo ..?"_

"Ooookaayyyy," Lillian sighed. She used her new soccer skills to bump Cornelia's carry-on up and into her arms, and turned to scamper out the door with an evil chuckle before her sister could come after her.

"If my make-up's ruined, I'm _so _burying you next to it!" Cornelia shrieked, and followed her laboriously down the steps to the door to the Hales' apartment. _'Okay, maybe I _am_ bringing too much for a weekend wedding,'_ she panted to herself as she took a reprieve from her over-packed suitcases.

"Don't rest yet, Cornflower," her dad said from behind her. She sighed at the new nickname she'd gotten when she had grown taller than both her parents. "Straight down to the shuttle and off to the airport, or we're gonna be late."

Cornelia glanced over her shoulder, to see her parents and her sister each had only one suitcase, aside from the suit-carrier over her mom's shoulder with Harold Hale's only tuxedo and Elizabeth's own favorite reception dress. Letting out a mental curse, which she fervently hoped her little sister couldn't hear yet, Cornelia grabbed her bags again and headed towards the elevator.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Six hours later, the Hale family landed in Seattle from Baltimore. Disembarking from the nonstop flight Harold had found, they all stopped and reset their watches and phones for the time difference, to discover it was only three hours after they had left Heatherfield.

"Well, this's gonna be loads of no fun," Cornelia groused, glaring at her little sister. Lillian had spent the majority of the flight sullen and whiney, being separated from her sphere of influence, but now that she was back on firm ground, (tarmac aside) she was her usual hyper self. A passing flight attendant, seeing the abrupt change in the formerly-grumpy ten-year-old after landing, just gave the other three Hales a sympathetic _"Good luck."_

Back on the ground and still in a greater metropolis, Cornelia used some of her gazillian rollover minutes to call the Guardians and let them know she'd landed okay. (It was amazing how much phone time you saved when you and your best friends were all telepathically linked.) Then she made the other call she'd been waiting to make for when they had arrived.

"_Hello, Alpha Delta Omicron House; what can I do ya for?"_

"Uh, hello. I'm trying to reach Peter Cook. The basketball star," Cornelia told the Jersey transplant on the other end of the line.

"_Ha! I'm sure he'll be glad somebody calls him that. Who's lookin' for him?"_

"Just tell him Lia's in town, and stand back," she said. Wondering what had happened to their home-town hero for him to lose his courtyard rep this fast, she drummed her fresh French-tipped nails against her phone.

"_Lia? Cornelia, is that you?"_ Peter's voice came on the line seconds later. She chuckled.

"Yeah, Dred-boy, we just landed in Seattle. You still wanna spend some time away from your new friends with little ol' me?"

"_You're kidding, right? Let me know where you guys are staying, and I'll do my best to be there in less time than a pizza delivery."_ Cornelia laughed at the reminder of how the two had finally started dating.

"Just a sec, I'll ask Dad." Stepping back by her parents, she saw that they'd found all the family's luggage except for Lillian's small suitcase. "Hey Dad, which hotel are we staying at? Peter's wondering where to meet us."

"Oho, so this is why you've been calling him so much lately, eh?" her father said.

"Well, yeah, I mean, no _way_ I'm gonna want to go to my cousin's wedding without a date. And besides, he's already on the right side of the continent." Harold facepalmed, and Elizabeth started to chuckle.

"She's got you there, dear," she said. "But we're not staying in Seattle, honey. The Cullens have invited us to enjoy their hospitality in Forks. Apparently they've got a huge house with tons of guest rooms, and very few guests coming for the wedding after all."

"We … we're not staying … in Seattle?" Cornelia uttered, dumbstruck. She could hear Peter's faint _"What?"_ over her phone. Lillian stole it from her slack grasp.

"Hiiii, Peter," she cooed, and started making kissy noises. Cornelia belatedly snatched her phone back.

"Beast! Moooom, did we _have_ to bring her? Elly or Will would have been more than willing to watch her for the weekend."

"And make them sacrifice time with Matt and Caleb so you can spend more with Peter?" Elizabeth countered. "It's a _family event,_ Cornelia. Now let the poor guy know where the town is, and you two can catch up tomorrow."

Stricken, Cornelia delivered her bad news in a dead voice, just as her dad yelled out. "Finally! Our last suitcase! Let's get out of here." The Hales grabbed their bags and started through the rest of the airport to find Harold's nephew Jasper, whose wedding they were here in Washington to attend.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Despite her hyper state in the Seattle airport, Lillian managed to doze off anyway during their connector flight to Port Angeles on Jasper's business partner's (and soon to be brother-in-law's) company plane. Elizabeth sighed with relief over it, Cornelia dreaded what the Heart of Earth would be like when she woke up, and Harold remained comfortably oblivious of the situation as he got acquainted with his distant cousin and Emmett Cullen.

The two young men couldn't have been more different. Jasper was a blonde like almost every Hale; (Harold's own dirty blonde hair was always being called brown until it self-bleached every summer,) Emmett's curls were so dark brown they were nearly black. Emmett was a physical powerhouse, taller than even Cornelia's willowy six-foot frame, and as muscled as Arnold Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferrigno in their prime; Jasper was tall as well, but wiry, reminding Harold more of his older daughter's last boyfriend Caleb. Jasper was aloof and withdrawn, where Emmett was easygoing and forthright. Harold could see why they made such good friends and partners: they managed to bring out the best in each other as if they'd been doing it forever, even though he could tell they couldn't be older than their mid-twenties.

"So, what kind of business are you in, anyway?" he finally asked them. He had no idea why it hadn't occurred to him to inquire before.

"Imports," said Jasper.

At the same time Emmett said "Antiquities."

They exchanged a look, and both said "Antique imports."

"So, supplying the nuevo-riche with pretty heirlooms, then," Harold laughed. They both chimed in, with a humanly-imperceptible delay. "Say, if you ever expand enough to advertise, just call my Cornelia up. She's a budding little spokes-model. Got two ads under her belt already," he added proudly.

Jasper grinned. "Always looking to keep the business in the family," he said, warming considerably from his initial moodiness. "Now, what say we enjoy the view, while there still is one? I hear there's fresh fog rolling in off the sound, so we'll be driving to Forks _in_ the cloud cover."

Harold agreed affably, and they all settled in to watch the scenery flow by for the last few minutes of their flight.


	2. Landing

"_Somebody's always watching …"_

A Twilight / W.i.t.c.h. Crossover

By: _A J_

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

Chapter 2

Their turboprop landed without fanfare under the perpetual cloud-cover that engulfed the Olympic Peninsula.

They were greeted in Port Angeles by a group of the most beautiful people Cornelia had ever seen. The shortest woman among them came pelting forward, her flyaway brown hair in total disarray as it fanned behind her. Ignoring everyone else, she jogged past the landing party and fairly threw herself at the pilot still at the top of the steps to the plane.

Turning back to the rest of the waiting group, Cornelia was nonplussed to see she'd missed the approach of the girl with black pixie-cut hair, who was now as entwined with her dad's cousin Jasper as the other girl was with their pilot.

"That must be Alice," Harold Hale said, admiring their relative's choice in partners.

'_What was your first clue,'_ Cornelia thought, rolling her eyes. She heard the pilot snicker behind her, and smiled that he'd heard her father as well.

"So where's Nessie?" Emmett asked. The girl hugging their pilot groaned, and all the other Forks folks laughed.

"Where else?" the only blonde woman in their group asked. "Finishing the day's schoolwork and driving her pet dog to distraction."

"Who's Nessie?" Elizabeth asked Jasper.

"Edward and Bella's precocious daughter," he replied, with a smile. "She's actually about Lillian's age." He looked down at the wobbly girl following her parents, and grinned. "We home-school her because she's … well, a handful, frankly …" He stopped as his fiancé gave him an elbow to the ribs.

"Don't let him kid you. He's just sore because he's not her favorite uncle this week," Alice sang, reminding the Heatherfield Hales of Hay Lin, Cornelia's flighty Chinese friend.

"A handful, hmmmm? Her and Lils should be best friends as soon as they lay eyes on each other … if they don't rip each other apart first," Cornelia chuckled, ruffling her sister's hair. She was too busy laughing evilly at her sister's whiny retort to see the strange look of fear the beautiful crowd passed between themselves.

"Alright, kids, we've still got a long drive ahead of us, so let's get on the road," The man at the back of the group from Forks said. "This way, everyone." He turned to lead them all towards a long stretch limo that was waiting at the edge of the tarmac.

"_Wow,"_ Lillian breathed, at the sight of the car. Cornelia ruffled her hair again, but more gently, and she was giving her sister a warm smile this time.

"Couldn't have said it better myself, kiddo." Hefting her three bags, (Cornelia could tell her sister was on her last legs, even though they both got a revitalizing boost from fresh contact with their Element,) she nudged Lillian forward. The exhausted Heart of Earth made an end run for the open door of the limo, her own small bag banging into her legs as she went.

Emmett relieved her of the luggage when she got there, in a sweeping move that lifted Lillian up as well when she didn't let go of the handle right away. He gave a laugh, and with his free hand, gently pried her loose and set her back on the ground before setting the suitcase into the trunk.

"Oh, they're going to get along fine, our girls," Bella the brunette said from behind Cornelia. She and Edward were still cuddled together at the bottom of the plane's steps.

"Not coming?" Elizabeth asked, grabbing her own suitcase and her dress-carrier.

"Tell the others I'm going to square away the jet, and I'll take our regular car back," Edward told her, nodding toward a sleek British-green TVR-6 sitting at the side of the nearby hangar. Cornelia gawked. One thing finally dating an Earth boy had done was teach her the basic appreciation of fine automobiles.

"That's your _regular_ car?" she gushed. Edward chuckled, and Bella growled. Cornelia turned to look at her. Yep, she wasn't imagining it, Bella _had_ growled; in fact she was _still _growling, although it was kind of hard with the smoldering kisses Edward was delivering to the back of her neck.

"Just because you've never appreciated the finer points of automotive engineering, love," Cornelia heard him murmur to her, and turned back to head to the limo with a smile.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

The limousine was huge, all right; Lillian had the backmost seat all her own to pass out on, and the other couples all became obvious as they took their own seats throughout. Emmett and the tall blonde were sitting all the way forward, conversing quietly with their foreheads together. The oldest of the Forks crowd settled himself in the second seat back, a gorgeous redheaded goddess curled up comfortably against him. Jasper and spritely Alice sat on the left hand seats by the door, with Harold, Elizabeth and Cornelia across from them. A small entertainment center was set in the middle of the car, though the Heatherfielders noticed it was stocked only with bottled water and fruit juices that didn't require refrigerating. At Harold's wordless questioning look, Alice chuckled.

"Well, we knew you were bringing children along," she said, while Cornelia helped herself to a warm bottle of strawberry-kiwi. "Besides, we only ever take this hulking thing out of the garage when we're going somewhere all together, and we prefer to keep temptation out of Renesmee's sight as well." The other adults all had a chuckle.

"Most of us drive our own cars, which, sad to say, almost all look a bit like Edward's newest toy, which you saw back at the airfield," the oldest man said.

"Is that right, uh ..?" Harold stumbled verbally, and Alice slapped Jasper on the arm. The impact echoed strangely in the limo's interior.

"Jaz, how could you? Or you, Emmett?" she aimed a dark glare at her brother all the way up front. Leaning forward, she apologized to the Heatherfield Hales. "At least he told you _my_ name. Emmett's my brother, sorry to say at the moment," she said with a wicked grin. "His gorgeous wife is Rosalie. You already got to meet our other brother Edward, and his wife Bella. She's my best friend from high school, and they were immediate sweethearts. The two in the middle are our parents," she beamed. "May I introduce you to Doctor Carlisle and Missus Esme Cullen; aaaannnnd," she paused, continuing only after they went over a bump (barely-felt thanks to the suspension of the limousine) in the Olympic Peninsula Highway. "Welcome to Forks, Washington."

"Doctor Carlisle Cullen?" Elizabeth breathed. "Sh-surely not the same Doctor Cullen who …" (_Author's note: _A Twilight tale I may get around to, eventually! _A J_)

"The very same," Esme said proudly, giving her husband's arm a squeeze. Cornelia had to look away for a second. Between her red hair and his dark brown, they reminded her too much of Will and Caleb at the moment. The pair of leaders were natural together like she and the former rebel never had been, but it still stung to see.

"Wow," Elizabeth murmured.

Cornelia looked back around again, and Jasper gave her quickly-buried frown a quizzical look. She shook her head slightly, and mouthed '_Later_.' She smiled brightly as she remembered just what Doctor Cullen was famous for. She'd have to remember to rub it in to Irma that she'd actually gotten to meet the man behind the miracle cure that had saved the Water Guardian's bratty little brother. Chris Lair was the same age as Lillian, which (much to the two Guardians' horror) meant they spent half the day together in the same school, and got to concoct new and interesting ways to torture their older sisters _together._

"Hey, Doc. I'd like to pass on some personal thanks," she spoke up. "There were three cases in Heatherfield, one of 'em my friend's younger brother. Without you and your last-minute save, he'd have been a goner." There; thanks delivered, and it even sounded like she'd been channeling Irma herself there for a second. Certainly _her_ grammar wasn't that atrocious. At least, she hoped not. Lord, Lair-on-the-air's mouth was contagious; she'd have to start bringing her I-pod to lunch again.

"Where're we?" Lillian mumbled from the back seat as they took a large curve.

"Almost there, sweety," Rosalie said from the other end of the cabin. "We just pulled onto our driveway." The Heatherfield trio (Lillian just grunted and rolled away from the rest of them) looked out the forward panel and saw a large white house come into view through the trees. Elizabeth and Cornelia both '_Aaaah'_ed appreciatively, while Harold gave it a Real-estater's admiring appraisal.

As they were pulling into the well-travelled stretch of gravel in front of the garage, a lithe shape came streaming out of the house, large brown eyes sparkling with joy.

"Daddy! Daddy Daddy Daddy!" she cried over and over, scrambling to a halt just outside the back door. Her wide smile was short an incisor on top and bottom, neither matching, so she had two holes peeking through. Cornelia laughed. This had to be Renesmee. As the girl with a permanent nickname she couldn't stand, thanks to Irma, she meant to make sure first thing which one _this_ little girl preferred. Jasper opened the door, and the bronze-haired ingénue scampered inside, only to come to a too-still halt. "Where're my parents?"

"Edward stayed to put the airplane away, Nessie. He and your mom'll be back … Oh, never mind, here they come." Emmett was looking out the back window as he said this, and the rest of them turned just in time to see the green blur that was the TVR come to a screeching halt, millimeters from their bumper. Renesmee and the others were still piling out of the limo when their driver went barreling past to pull the other car's driver-side door open with a furious expression, which fell apart as Bella stepped out.

"Why thank you, Seth. That was very gentlemanly of you," she said with an impish grin. Edward climbed out of the passenger door.

"Women drivers, eh, Seth?" he said affectionately. It still got him death-glared from six different directions, to which he only smiled, and knelt down just as Renesmee went around the car at a run, somehow managing to pass between the two vehicles without a break. She leaped into his arms with a happy grin and set her hands on each side of his face, and the two's smiles were such an exact match, missing teeth aside, that Bella sighed and stopped glaring within seconds.

"HEY, WHO'S DRIVING THE …" The party all turned to face the latecomer from the house, an impossibly tall red-skinned native American who was staring dumbfounded at the girl in question. "Bells," he moaned, ashen-faced.

"Oh, don't have kittens, dog-boy," Rosalie said teasingly. "She was safe in the limo with us."

"Still _IS_," they all heard in a sleepy whine. "What's all the noise about?" Lillian Hale poked her head out the driver's-side back door and looked blearily around. "Hey, Corny," she groaned. "Can ya tell all the vampires real people are tryin' to sleep here?"

Harold and Elizabeth were both too busy laughing, and Cornelia was too busy trying to scramble back through the crowd to strangle her sister over the use of her _verbieten_ nickname, to notice how impossibly quiet the rest of the people around them had suddenly become.


	3. Collision

"_Somebody's always watching …"_

A Twilight / W.i.t.c.h. Crossover

By: _A J_

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

Chapter 3

Solange looked around her. Seattle wasn't so bad. The bustling metropolis was a far cry from her old haunts in the Italian Alps, where she'd eked out a living as a messenger on the border between the Volturi and the last two remaining Romanian Lords. She laughed at herself for using 'haunts' and 'living' together. Neither described her, did they? Steven would be so cross with her if he knew she'd stayed behind. But she was tired of the drama of the old country, and of her Great-great-grandfather and the Italian vampires. She figured it was time to immigrate to the New World.

'_I wonder if I can get away with living like the Cullens do, taking advantage of the rainy weather and living off borrowed blood.'_ Having just witnessed a grand court visit, she knew better than to draw any attention to herself so soon after the Volturi had been thwarted. So she decided instead to armor herself in anonymity as she had among the Romanian peasantry, who very well did still believe in _wampyri, _and went in search of the local underworld, where anything could be bought, from cars to blood to lives. She'd need the last one first; a new identity with no connection to her Romanian roots.

Here, her looks would help her. Where the majority of her brethren had been culled from the aristocracy, and had been as blonde as any Swede, she was raven-haired, hand-picked from the Slovakian city of Bratislava a century before either had had those names. She'd been a street-urchin, barely old enough to escape the child-rule herself when she'd been turned, and just old enough to start gaining the notice of the less savory males of the city when Steven's minions had found her, transformed her, taught her, and returned her to her former world to rule it in their name. Solange had never looked back.

Her arrow-straight black hair, and her gypsy blood and eyes, made her look almost Asian, which made her fit right in in the Pacific Northwest. She whistled an old minuet from some dead musician, Brahms or Bach, she couldn't remember and didn't care, and stopped in front of the dilapidated building in middle of the dilapidated quarter of town. If her information was correct, here was where to find the man who could remake her name. She just had to wait.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Peter Cook put the last of his homework in the 'saved and printed' folder on his desktop, logged out, and shut down his computer. Packing it up along with his best dress clothes, he careened downstairs long enough to check on his bike. He'd gotten the used motorcycle online, from somebody in the Forks area coincidentally, because the previous owner had quite literally outgrown it. While it was a little cramped for Peter's six-foot-two, the guy he'd bought the blue beauty from had been going on seven foot, and claimed he was still growing. Wherever he was, Pete wished Jacob Black luck, and hoped that if he ever came to college, Pete could talk him into joining the basketball team.

"Hey, Sophie, pass me another brew!" Peter rolled his eyes as he went out the back door of ADO House.

His roommates were the epitome of the jock crowd, drinking, partying, dating, playing every sport under the sun. It was probably the most ridiculous fraternity at NWU, but they'd liked Peter's test scores and athletic record enough to bring him into the fold and across the country, so he put up with them. He was glad he'd managed to inherit enough of his parents' brains to keep his grades up while hanging with his brothers here. "Just a sec, Carl! 'm checkin' on my wheels!"

Peter gave his bike a once-over, making sure nothing new was leaking, and that the tires were still full. Between intramural pranks and the vehicle's age, he'd had more than his share of motorbike grief. Satisfied it was still in one piece, he went back through to his room, stopping on the way to drop a cold beer from the fridge in Carl Riberson's lap. The football player gave him a distracted wave, since he was still in the middle of a round of Socom Online.

"Thanks, Sophie!" followed him as he got to the top of the stairs. Peter laughed. He'd lived through 'Freshie', 'Sophie' was almost over, 'Junie' was next, and then he'd be a Senior, and _he_ could bellow orders to the undergrads with impunity.

Grabbing his suitcase and his helmet, Peter slalomed down the stairs again, and headed out the door to go to a wedding in Forks. He chuckled. Maybe he'd run into Jacob Black, and he could talk him into becoming a Freshie next year.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

_Four hours later ..._

Charlie Swan woke abruptly to the phone next to his bed. "'s better be _good_ news," he muttered, grabbing it. "Sherriff Swan."

"Hey, Charlie. I hate to wake you this late at night, but we've got a bit of a problem down here. Would have been a fender-bender, but one of 'em was on a donor-cycle."

"Oh God," Charlie moaned. "Any fatalities, Ray?"

"Na. The kid's okay, but he says he wants to wait to clear everything up on Monday. Says he's late for a wedding. I'm guessing it's you-know-who's."

Charlie had to fight down a chuckle. It would shake the whole bed, and it wouldn't do to wake Sue this late at night. (If she wasn't up already from the phone ringing, that was.) "Alice's got half this town turned around, trying to make her own wedding even bigger than she did Bella's. Who's the kid?"

There was some incoherent mumbling on the other end. "Peter Cook, he says. Up from NWU as a date of one of the Hale guests. Big black ki …_ sorry, 'Ahem!'_ African American kid. Looks like a basketball player." That time, Charlie did laugh. Ray was older than Charlie and Billy both, and set in his ways. Political Correctness wasn't one of them.

"So who was the other involved party, Ray?"

"Huh?"

Charlie rolled his eyes. One of these days, he'd take all the volumes of C.S.I. and Law & Order that Bella'd gotten him for Christmas (along with the Blu-ray to play them on) for the guys to learn modern police-speak. "Who else was in the accident?"

"Oh! Uh, Mike. Mike Newton. Guess his Jessica's getting' to her cravings stage. He's sittin' here complainin' about havin' to find somewhere open this late to get pickles and peanut-butter ice-cream." Charlie laughed some more, and Sue woke up after all.

"You know what, Ray? I'm awake now, I've got both, and I'll be right down to handle this … What intersection did this happen at?"

"That's the best part, Charlie." He could hear the old coot's wheezy laughter over the line. "I didn't even have to warm up the cruiser. It happened right out front of the station." Ray wheezed some more.

"Be right there, Ray," Charlie chuckled, and hung up.

"Be right _where,_ Charles Swan?" Sue Clearwater grumped from the other side of the bed.

"Just down to the station and back, Sue. Well, with a stopoff up at the Cullens. Seems a wedding guest got himself into a fender-bender in front of the Police Station with Mike Newman. Poor Mike. Kid hasn't had any kind of luck since Bella moved here. Which reminds me, I've got to go to the store for more pickles and ice-cream tomorrow. Jessica's inheriting ours." Sue flounced back into the covers with a groan.

"You're too good for yourself and this town, Charlie. Try not to wake me when you get back, okay?"

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Peter was spending his time making sure his laptop had survived sliding fifty feet in his suitcase. He was mostly pretending to be busy so he could drown out the continual apologies of the poor guy who'd practically paved him under with his family's SUV. The hardcase his sister Taranee had told him was 'the best thing on the market right now' hadn't even gotten a scratch, let alone had anything loosened inside. _"Thanks, T'ree,"_ he murmured under his breath, followed shortly by _"Shut UP already, Mike."_ Where was the Sherriff?

Just as he wondered, another cruiser pulled into the station, and another balding man stepped out. _'Guess this town doesn't believe in Rogaine,'_ Pete chuckled.

"Hi, Peter; Mike. Sorry to hear about the bang-up. Let's see what we can do here to get everybody home before dawn, eh?" Charlie led the two back into the station and over to his desk. Ray already had all their forms filled out from just talking to them, the wily old coot. "Okay, well, looks like everything here's already in order, then. All you need is this," he signed a copy, and handed it to Mike. "This," he continued, repeating the process for Peter, "and this." He signed the last copy, and threw it into his 'Out' box, to be filed in the morning. "Nothing to it, boys, just turn it in to your insurance carriers, and everything else is their problems."

"You've done this before, haven't you?" Peter said with a grin.

"His daughter's the town klutz," Mike said, as if that explained everything. "I went to high school with her. Poor Charlie's probably been filling out accident reports and insurance forms since she learned to walk." The three Forks men all laughed at the familiar joke, and Peter chuckled politely.

"So, how do I get to the Hale-Cullen wedding?" Pete asked.

"I'll get you there," the Sherriff replied. "'s'soon as Mike comes out to my cruiser for his groceries. Honestly, Mike, what do they teach in high school nowadays? Back when I met Renee, they still taught the basics of wifely care in home-ec." Old Ray wheezed some more, and Charlie led the two young men out with a satisfied smile.

"Back passenger door, Mike." Charlie turned to Peter. "So, who are you a guest of, again?"

"Cornelia Hale. She's the daughter of the cousin of the groom. I think." He scratched his head for a second, and then looked around in confusion. "Okay, what's left of the bike is still under the mailbox there, but … where did I leave ..?" Before he could finish, Ray came out of the station with a battered red-on-blue motorcycle helmet.

"Best not lose this, Mister Cook. It's what kept you from lookin' like your headlight." Peter thanked him profusely, and turned back to Charlie.

"Thanks, Charlie, you're a life-saver!" Mike gushed, coming back and shaking the Sherriff's hand. Charlie beamed at him.

"Better get it home before the ice-cream melts more, Mike. Is your truck okay?" Ray laughed while Mike just nodded sheepishly.

"Come on Charlie, you know as well as I do no motor-sickle made is gonna so much as scratch anything what weighs over a ton," said Ray.

"I'll talk to you all tomorrow, Ray, Charlie. Sorry about the bike, Peter."

"It's okay, Mike. Just get home and take care of your lady. And drive safe," Peter said. If Mike Newman never apologized to him again, he could die happy.

The burly twenty-year-old climbed back into his SUV, got it turned over and turned around, and trundled off into the semi-dark of the Olympian fog.

"Well, see you tomorrow Sherriff," Ray said, ambling back into the station.

"It's already tomorrow, Ray," Charlie called after him.

"Ain't tomorrow 'til the sun comes up, Charlie."

Shaking his head with a smile, Charlie led Peter over to his cruiser. "We'll get your bike out of there tomorrow, Peter. And if it's savable, I'll see to it. The best mechanic in the county's my little girl's best friend. Jacob Black."

"Did you say Jacob Black?

"Uh-huh."

Now it was Peter's turn to start laughing. "Sorry, Sherriff," he said finally. 'Jacob Black's who I bought the bike from in the first place." Charlie started laughing too, and the two shared a companionable ride to the Cullen House.


	4. Relating

"_Somebody's always watching …"_

A Twilight / W.i.t.c.h. Crossover

By: _A J_

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

Chapter 4

Charlie pulled into the Cullens' driveway next to the limousine, and Peter gawked. "Wow, Lia said her family out here was loaded, but … Wow. That's a big limo."

"Hey, keep playing ball like I hear you do, and you'll have one yourself before long," Charlie said.

Grinning self-deprecatingly, Peter replied. "Only if I can keep off the fouls bench. I swear the refs here have it in for this Yankee. Even if my family's from south of the Mason Dixon originally."

"It's where your voice sounds like. Too much Nor-east refinement, not enough Bible-belt twang, that's all," Charlie chuckled. "Well, I'll let you out here; I've got to go home and do some sweet-talking so my girlfriend doesn't leave me on the couch." He and Pete both laughed as the younger man climbed out of the police cruiser and grabbed his suitcase from the back seat.

He was just swinging the rear passenger door shut when he heard a cool woman's voice, saying "I knew it was you right away, Dad. That engine cylinder's still missing. Better let Jacob get ahold of it before it gets worse."

"Will do, Bells. How are all the Cullens?"

"Oh, the usual. Carlisle and Esme are perfect, Jasper's sullen, Rosalie's impossible, Emmett and Alice are nosy as ever, and Edward …"

"I think the less I hear about you and your new husband's wedded bliss, the better. It definitely falls in the 'Necessary Information' heading, Isabella." Her father smiled tolerantly up at her, and she looked down in embarrassment. Peter gave the pale girl a once-over, noticing her dark brown hair, just a shade deeper than the Sheriff's, and her gorgeous designer clothes. Obviously, she'd married well, and he grinned, as his sweetheart's cousin was joining the same clan. She looked up at him just then, and Peter was taken aback by her shining, almost luminous, golden eyes.

"And how's the munchkin?" Charlie continued, not noticing her shift in attention.

"Renesmee's just as happy as I am to see you. Isn't that right, honey?" she said with a smirk, glancing towards the house. A young dark-haired girl, as pale as Isabella, came streaming down the driveway, and with a wave in passing to the stationary Peter, fairly leaped up the side of the Sheriff's cruiser to give Charlie a strangling hug.

"Ahh … Nessie … air …" he pleaded, all the while returning her embrace.

"Sorry, Grandpa," the girl said, pulling back. Peter guessed her age at about the same as Lillian Hale's, which threw off his estimate of the Sheriff's daughter wildly. He thought Isabella was barely twenty at first glance, but her daughter looked to be almost ten.

'_Huh. Guess Sheriff Swan came by that bald spot the old-fashioned way,'_ Peter thought to himself. "Hey, Chief, thanks for the ride here," he said through the passenger window. "Now I just gotta find Cornelia and find out where I'm supposed to be sleeping tonight."

"OH! You must be Peter!" Lithe Nessie came hopping around to his side of the cruiser. "Lillian told me all _about_ you …" She giggled, and Pete rolled his eyes. Yup, she was ten.

"Then she'll have told you I have a little sister of my own, too. And I know where all the best tickle targets are." He grinned down at her, and she gulped and backed up a step. Bella and Charlie both laughed.

"Go home, Dad, while you've still got a bed to get back to. I can't imagine Sue's too happy you're out this late."

Bella leaned down and gave her dad a hug. With a final wave and a "Night, you two. Night, Pete!" Charlie drove off.

"So you're Peter Cook, hmm?" Bella walked over to him, hand out to shake. "We've all heard about you. And don't worry, not all of it bad."

Peter took her too-cool hand and, dazzled by her smile, didn't even notice it.

"Was that Charlie's car, Bells?" a familiar voice asked from the porch. Turning, Peter and Bella both saw a seven-foot Native American with shaggy locks coming down the front steps. "Did you tell him about that misfiring cylinder?"

"Yeah, Jake. Expect him to call in the morning." Bella smiled up at her tall friend.

"Jake? Jacob Black?" Peter gawked. The Quileut was even taller than when he'd seen him last, lending proof to the claim Jake had made that he was still growing.

"Hey, Peter. Where's the bike? Didn't hear you pulling up." Jacob looked around.

"Ahhhh … that's 'cause the Sheriff brought me up from town. Some nut-job with a pregnant wife ran me under by the station-house. Mike … something-or-other."

Jake and Bella glanced at each other, then both started to laugh.

"Oh, man, I knew we got caught up in our own things up here, but how did we not hear about that?" Jake doubled over, until he was nearly eye-to-eye with Renesmee, still laughing. She took advantage of his stoop, and swung up onto his back, hanging on to his shoulders for when he stood up.

"I'll have to remember to call Jessica and congratulate her. I'll have to tell Alice too. Knowing her, this wedding is just the tip of the iceberg. She'll want to throw Jess a baby shower as soon as she and Jaz get back from their honeymoon." They were all heading in the door by then, Peter lagging behind with his suitcase and helmet.

"What's this about a baby shower?" a voice sang from the living room. A gorgeous blonde woman poked her head into the foyer as Peter was closing the door behind himself. He was about to ask Cornelia what she'd done with her hair, when the woman spoke again. "What could we possibly have forgotten to get Nessie that you think you need a baby shower at this late date?

"Oh, it's not for me, Rose. Jess's pregnant. I guess we were a little busy to get their wedding invitation."

"Jessica and Mike?" Rose's laughter rang musically through the house. Bella's grin grew.

"Nice to see your educational time wasn't totally wasted, Rosalie." A young man with spiky bronze hair came out of the kitchen. Rosalie raspberried him, and Renesmee laughed from where she sat on Jacob's shoulders.

"Good one, Edward," Jacob said, ruffling the little girl's hair. For his long arms, it was barely a stretch, and Peter remembered his personal promise to ask Jacob about joining the NWU basketball team. Rosalie hissed at the young giant.

"Good night, everybody," she said, not meaning it at all. "Peter, I understand you're dating my cousin, Cornelia? Come upstairs, and tell me all about it. They were too jet-lagged to be conversational when they got here. I'll show you to your room." She sauntered away from the rest of them, and Peter, with an apologetic grin at the others, followed.

"Catch up with y'all later," he said as he went, and thumped fists with Jacob on the way past. Jogging to just behind Rosalie on the stairs, he asked her how long the Hales had been there, and asleep. She gave him a quizzical look for a second, then her musical laugh rang out again.

"Sorry, Peter, it's just going to take some getting used to. Jasper and I have been the only Hales in Forks for years, so hearing someone ask after 'the Hales', and not meaning us, is … novel." He returned her smile.

"I can understand that. We were the only Cook family in Heatherfield, but back in Sesamo, it seemed like half the town was our cousins, and cousins of cousins."

"Is that so ..?" she said, and her grin changed. Peter couldn't quite figure it out, so he went ahead and asked.

"What are you thinking?"

"Oh, just wondering how serious you and Cornelia are. Alice will want to know how many of those cousins in Sesamo to invite to the _next_ wedding. She loves to plan parties, our Alice." Peter gulped, paling.

"Uh, actually, we really just started dating. I'm kind of her rebound guy." Her laughter was probably echoing through the whole house this time, he thought with chagrin.

"Oh, do tell. I love a good romance story." She knew the others would be listening in, and they could all use something new to talk about. '_One of the downsides of an eternal existence,' _she mused,_ 'is that eventually, you run out of fresh gossip.'_ She opened the door to their last guest room. "Cornelia and her sister are across the hall, and their parents are at the end in Edward's old room." Rosalie pointed to the end of the hallway. "Bathroom's between you, and the rest of us are at the other end of the hall." She swung into the guest room, all done up in ochres and natural wood-tones. "What do you think?" she asked, twirling around.

"What?" Peter asked, confused.

"The room, silly. Alice and Esme did the rest of the house, but this was my personal project. Those two are big fans of light and bright, but while this was my room, I wanted somewhere my hair could outshine the décor," she said with a coy grin. It reminded Peter of Cornelia all over again, and he smiled back.

"It's nice, Rose. It really does bring out your hair, and your eyes." Her smile ramped up to megawatt levels, and he cheered inwardly. _'Definitely a Hale,'_ Peter thought. _'She soaks up compliments like Cornelia.'_

"Soooo ..?" she said after a minute. "You were going to tell me all about yourself, and my cousin Cornelia." She plunked herself down on the bed, and patted the mattress next to her.

He sat down wearily, feeling all the bruises dumping the bike was leaving him. "Okay, first you'll need some background for this. The same year my family moved to Heatherfield, another one did, from Fadden Hills. Mother, Susan, and daughter, Will. Will's the same age as my sister Taranee, and Cornelia, and three other girls. Hay, Irma, and Elyon. The night we all moved into town, Halloween, there's this big party at the school, and these six all click. Like, _major,_ ya know? Friends for life, it's that good. My sweety's BFF Elyon, who she's known since kindergarten, suddenly goes missing, and the other five go all Scooby Doo to find her. Cornelia meets Caleb, who's this real rebel, works for a group of people from Meridian. Not sure where that is, never asked. He's helping them find Elly, and falls for Cornelia. Actually, from what I hear, it's mutual.

"Anyway, they find Elyon, who's apparently been kidnapped by a half-brother trying to get controlling interest of some family business, also in Meridian, and Caleb's like this gopher for the company that thinks Elyon would run it better, 'cause her brother's a jerk, and they convince the company to give _her_ the head chair, 'cept in proxy, since she's still a minor. So her parents get a deciding vote in the company in her name, and they're shway cool, so they run it like it needs to be run."

"How does this come back to you and Cornelia?" Rosalie asked when he paused for a breath, engrossed. She was sure there was more to this, but Peter could only give her the parts he knew, after all.

"It's coming up. Anyway, the next spring, Elyon and her family are now taking trips every weekend to Meridian to take care of any company stuff they have to, and then they find out that Caleb's mom, Nerissa, wants the company for herself. Naturally, the girls all go Scooby again, and find all the dirt they can to keep their friend from losing her company. Even Caleb, who tells us that the Browns are the best thing for Meridian. Sorry, missed that set of facts, Meridian is like, the company town, and Brown is Elyon's last name. So, they oust Nerissa as well, but the whole strain on all the girls is killing their relationships. Caleb and Cornelia break up, Will and Matt do too … Sorry, missed that as well. Matt's in my grade, and a guitarist in the local rock band. His bass player is dating my sister. But their relationship takes a dive at the same time as Cornelia's with Caleb, who's gotten out of Meridian and works for the Lin's Chinese restaurant, the Silver Dragon. That's Hay's family. Then Caleb starts dating Will, Matt starts dating Elyon, and Cornelia and I start going out.

"That was last year, just before I left for college here at NWU. Believe it or not, I'm willing to go the distance with her. She was a spoiled princess when she and my sister started to hang, but she's really grown up. Helped my sister to, as well. Taranee used to be afraid of her own shadow, and everything else. With all her friends, Will, Lia, Hay and the rest, she's … well, all I can say is that all of them are better together, and I'm just lucky to have found that one of 'em likes me."

Rosalie looked at him appraisingly for one moment, and chuckled. "I think you're both lucky, Peter. I also think you need to sleep off your accident. You're babbling." She stood up in one fluid motion, and drifted silently to the door. "There's pain medicine in the bathroom cabinet. She may have finally grown out of it, but back in high school, Bella was such a klutz, Edward kept everything from aspirin to ACE bandages around at all times." She smiled at something, then waved and left, shutting the door. Peter groaned as he kicked off his shoes, and flopped back on the bed.

"I babbled, huh? Guess Hay-hay's contagious." He turned over, and was asleep within minutes.


	5. Early

"_Somebody's always watching …"_

A Twilight / W.i.t.c.h. Crossover

By: _A J_

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

Chapter 5

Cornelia woke up earlier than she thought she should have. The lack of light was her first sign of a weird day starting. She was about to roll over and try to go back to sleep for a little while longer when she became aware of the small warm lump curled up against her. It was too big to be Napoleon, she thought, and turned to look. Lillian's small blonde form was folded in along Cornelia's spine, one hand clutching at her sister's nightshirt.

For a minute, Cornelia forgot just how much she hated it when her sister got clingy. Lillian was curled up so tightly, she looked smaller than her ten years, and Cornelia sighed, twisting one arm around to rest a hand softly on her sister's head.

Lillian sat up with a shriek, and looked wildly around the room. Seeing Cornelia, she dove into her sister's arms, trembling. "Oh, _Corny!_ I had the _worst _dream just now! Dad flew us across the country for a cousin's wedding, and we were _eaten _by_ vampires!"_ she cried into Cornelia's shirt, wildly sobbing.

"Whoa, Smurfette. Chill!" Cornelia invoked her favorite form of torture, reminding Lillian of her first inadvertent glamour backfire last Halloween, to get her sister to snap the rest of the way out of her nightmare. Lillian stiffened in her grip, and glared up at her.

"That was low, Corny. I'm not Irma," Lillian pouted. Irma was the only one her sister usually pulled out the big guns like that for. The two may have become friends over these last few years, but they still fought more like … well Cornelia and Lillian, actually. It gave Lillian an idea suddenly, but she'd have to wait until they could get back to Heatherfield, so she could wrangle her fellow fourth-grader Chris Lair into getting some dirt from Irma about Cornelia. Or she could just ask Hay Lin. The hyper Air girl never could keep a secret.

Their door rattled for a second, then a dark-skinned dred-head poked in. "Hey, everything all right? Lils woke everybody up."

"Just a nightmare, P …" Cornelia started to say, inordinately glad to see her long distance boyfriend. That was all she got out before …

"_PETER!"_ Lillian cried, flying out of Cornelia's grasp and fairly leaping into the stunned basketball player's arms. He held her up, a chagrinned look on his face, as Cornelia smiled tolerantly. If she didn't know better, she would swear her baby sister was trying to steal her boyfriend. The other Guardians were all pretty sure that Lillian and Chris were going to end up together though, much to Irma and Cornelia's dismay.

"Morning, Lia," Pete said, smiling back. "And good morning to you, too, Lils," he added, and started tickling her. She shrieked happily, her shorter arms trying to get him back to no avail.

"Aahhhh! Help! Corny, he's got me-hee-hee!" she cried, squirming.

"Call me Corny again, and I'll help him," Cornelia laughed, enjoying the spectacle.

"Isn't it a little early for that?" the girls' father asked. Peter turned, a now-upside down Lillian still wriggling and giggling in his arms, to face Harold Hale.

"Oh, it's never too early to hear the sound of happy children," Rosalie said from down the hall. She was snuggled into her sweetheart Emmett's arms, smiling at the laughing Lillian and Peter. "Is it, dear?" He shook his head, chuckling at her misplaced motherly streak, and kissed the top of her head.

"Definitely not, Rose," Esme said from the top of the steps on the other side of the tableau. "Well, since everybody's up … who wants breakfast?" She'd become a cooking guru over the last couple years, trying her hand at just about any recipe that caught her attention, so she could make their ever-growing human and shifter family of friends feel more at home.

"Definitely breakfast," Cornelia answered. She popped into the doorway to notice that all the Cullens were all already dressed. _'Weird.'_ "Just let us get dressed, and we'll be right down to help." She nabbed her squirming sister out of her boyfriend's arms, kissed him good morning, and disappeared back into her room with Lillian. "C'mon, squirt," she said, closing the door in her dad's face as Peter returned to his own room. "Help me with some shirt choices, and I'll braid your hair."

"Ooooh! Deal!" Lillian chirped, sounding like Hay Lin. Normally, the preadolescent let her straight blond hair hang loose like her sister and mother both, but after seeing the French braids most of the Cullen women sported yesterday, she had begged her sister sleepily to 'do hers up' for the wedding. Cornelia had reluctantly agreed last night just so her sister would shut up already and sleep, but this morning, she decided she'd do it to keep the young Heart of Earth from becoming a royal brat. She had a horrible feeling that where one ten-year-old girl went, the other was sure to follow today.

The sisters were downstairs in record time for them, less than fifteen minutes, only to find that they'd have no chance to help with breakfast anyway. Esme had cooked all of them a veritable continental breakfast buffet, with two different kinds of eggs, sausage links and patties, Canadian and strip bacon, pancakes, waffles, four different fruits, and three different juices. Paused in the doorway, Cornelia and Lillian looked in wonder at the covered counter, trying not to drool while gasping.

"Hey, you two. You're holding up the line," the driver from the limo last night said from behind them. The girls turned to find Seth, Renesmee, Jacob, and a tall Native American girl standing behind them. Renesmee jogged Seth with her elbow, and he winced. "Oh, uh, this is my sister, Leah Clearwater. Leah, this is …"

"Lillian and Cornelia Hale, my soon-to-be-uncle Jasper's cousins from Heatherfield," Renesmee supplied when he stumped himself.

"Thanks, Nessie," he muttered, smiling. Jacob gave the bronze-haired girl's shoulder a squeeze. Leah held her hand out to Cornelia, and the Earth Guardian shook it.

"Wow, that's some grip, Lily," Leah said.

"Actually, I'm Cornelia," she corrected, grinning. She'd been about to say the same to the raven-haired woman. With her Guardian strength, newly-enhanced after their last world-saving mission, she continually had to be careful how much pressure she put behind things she did. Leah had caught her off guard, but the woman had a surprising strength herself.

"And it's Lillian," her sister added, holding her own hand out. "I hate being called Lily." Jacob and Seth exchanged a startled glance, but said nothing. Renesmee got a strange look on her face while Lillian shook hands with Leah, then stepped forward to follow suit.

"Then why do you use them as a perfume ..?" she started to ask, as she and Lillian clasped hands. Both girls gasped, eyes wide in shock at what they learned about each other in that instant of contact. They separated as if scalded.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Jacob and Cornelia both hissed, kneeling to find out the answer as well as comfort their respective younger charges.

Renesmee held a hand up, still gasping, and shared her glimpse of the Guardians' larger universe with Jacob, knowing he would pass it on to Seth, Leah and the rest of the Quileut pack the next time they all shifted. He nodded in quick acknowledgement.

Lillian meanwhile was telepathically conferring with her sister._ "OMG, Cornelia, I was right! My nightmare was RIGHT! They're all VAMPIRES!"_

"_Lils, calm down! They can't be! It's already morning! Look at them all! They'd be bursting into flame and crumbling to dust, or something!"_

"_Hel-_LO_, Corny, overcast!"_ Lillian sent back, looking out the nearest window. The usual Olympic Peninsula cloud cover was easily visible from inside, backlit by a pink and gold dawn. _"We have _GOT_ to get out of here, Cornelia!"_

Cornelia pulled her sister in close and hugged her reassuringly. She glanced up at the other four speculatively, but they were all just as distracted trying to calm little Renesmee down. _"Look, something tells me they aren't gonna just munch us in our sleep, Lils. They invited us all the way across country for a _wedding_, for Candracar's sake. I'll call the girls, and we'll get some reinforcements of our own, okay?"_

"_Better get my guys as well,"_ Lillian sniffled. The idea of having hew own supernatural backup around seemed to help calm her down.

"_Oh, yeah,"_ her sister countered with a smirk, pulling back. _"We can't forget Lillian's Heavies."_ The Hale sisters shared a telepathic giggle, and stood apart again. _"Best pretend we don't know anything, yet. No reason to run screaming, at least on an empty stomach."_ The pervasive smell of Esme's wonderful cooking had spread into the hallway they were in, and the two turned back to face the kitchen, where all the adults were looking out the door curiously, Jasper with a strained look on his face.

"Come on, kiddo. No reason to freak out about a static jolt." She glanced back at the others, and caught the barest nod of thanks for the ready excuse from Jacob and Renesmee, who, while certainly not monstrous-looking at the moment, were definitely in the know somehow. _'Huh. Guess if shaking hands was enough to tell her as much as it told Lils, she could pass it on just as easily as we just did,'_ Cornelia thought to herself. The thought of someone else finding out the secret of the Guardians had her worrying more about just how much the mutual glimpse had shown the others. Not for the first time, Cornelia found herself wishing their Elementally-linked gifts were interchangeable. Taranee's telepathy would have come in _so_ handy right then.

"Where're your parents, Nessie?" Emmett asked.

"Huh? Oh, they're … how do our British friends put that? Having a bit of a lie-in," she responded, and the last part came out in a beautiful brogue. Rosalie laughed.

"You've been practicing, huh?" she said, grinning at her precocious niece. Renesmee nodded back, and stepped over to the counter along with Jacob. The seven-foot Quileut filled two plates, one with a couple bites of each thing, and a second with heaping helpings of almost every food present. (He skipped the pineapple.)

Peter moved over at his end of the long table as the two came his way, leaving two spaces on his other side for Cornelia and Lillian. They joined him shortly, after witnessing the platefuls Seth and Leah built, with alarming piles of food almost as tall as Jacob's. When the sisters sat down, Pete chuckled.

"Still trying that diet, huh Lia?" he asked, when he saw her plate. All she had was plain eggs, one pancake, and the rest of her plate was buried in fruit.

"Haven't stopped just because you aren't there," she countered. She never had told him the real reason behind her near-vegetarian diet. The second time she and her teammates had utilized the Zenith transformation, she had been separated from them on Zamballa for most of a day, and it had taken the girls hours to bring her back to her human form. Now, her diet looked more like the ingredient list on plant food pellets, and she avoided nearly all animal flesh, getting most of her protein from eggs and beans exclusively. Her only concession was the occasional seafood stir-fry at the Silver Dragon. (Irma had teased her that many plant foods had ground-up fish bones once, and the next morning the Water Guardian had found her bike at the top of a brand-new twenty-foot tree in her back yard.)

"Yeah, you're hardly the only one she's staying skinny for," Lillian teased from between them. She had a plate similar to her sisters, except it was mostly eggs and waffles, with a small pile of mixed fruit she was busily dicing into tiny pieces and stuffing into the holes in her waffles.

"_Lil-_lian," Cornelia moaned, blushing as she glanced at Peter. Shifting her foot next to her sister's, she continued telepathically._ "What's the big idea?"_

"_Hey, I read it in one of those 'Teen Beat' magazines you and the others leave all over the apartment. Make the guy work for the relationship."_ Lillian finished her fruit mutilation, and spun her plate to tackle her eggs. The waffles always tasted better after all the fruit juices soaked in. Cornelia choked around the juice she was pretending to drink, and her mom coolly whacked her on the back.

"Slow down, Cornelia. You don't have to go running off to meet your friends, for once," Elizabeth said absentmindedly. She shook her head. Ever since her older girl had turned into a teen, she'd spent more time away from home with her friends than she thought possible. At least the girls were 'the good crowd', all into community service and helping people. She had heard once from young Will Vandom's mother Susan that the girls consistently volunteered down at the animal shelter that worked with Jim Olsen's veterinary clinic, and that once a month, Hay Lin's family all helped out at the local soup kitchen, with the girls as willing servers and assistant cooks. (Cornelia made the salads.)

"'m okay, Mom," the Earth Guardian managed, doing her best with a napkin to keep her dribbling to a minimum. With a surreptitious glare at her sister, she tried to go back to her breakfast. _"This conversation is _far_ from over, Lils."_ Her sister giggled, then bumped her leg back.

Peter noticed most of the Cullen family wasn't eating, merely sitting around the table with their coffee cups, and keeping their guests company. Emmett had a plate of bacon strips in front of him, but he seemed to be just snapping the perfectly-crisped strips into splinters.

"I thought only the bride got too nervous to eat before the wedding," Pete joked.

"Oh, we know better than to get in between Jacob and food," Rosalie said flippantly. "Most of us are early risers anyway, and we ate while we helped Esme cook. What?" she continued, as Peter looked at her flawless hair and freshly-painted nails. (He vaguely remembered she'd had on a different color polish last night while they talked.) "You didn't think we left our poor _maman_ to make all this by herself, did you?"

The other Cullens mimicked shock and outrage at the thought, while Esme and her oldest daughter-in-law traded an insiders' smile. Renesmee laughed at the other end of the table.

Carlisle stood up. "Well, I'm off to work. Handling a double shift today so I can get out of tomorrow's a bargain I can live with." His wife stood as well to give him a steamy good-bye kiss, and he ruffled Renesmee's hair on his way out.

"So, how do you want to spend today?" Peter asked Cornelia quietly when Lillian bounced back over to the counter for a second helping. He was all-too-aware of Rosalie trying to eavesdrop from across the table.

"Mmmm, let me get back to you," Cornelia replied, chewing on a tough chunk of pineapple. She had a private laugh at the thought that she'd probably eaten Jacob's share of the tart fruit. "I have to make an emergency call after breakfast, first."

"What did you forget to pack?" he teased. She glowered back at him. It had been a long time since she'd been that shallow, but some jokes died a slow death.

"Nothing, dred-boy. I just forgot to tell your sister something, since she's watching Napoleon for us." She speared a melon ball with her fork and bit it in half, smirking when he gulped.

"Who's Napoleon?" Rose asked.

"My sister's cat," Cornelia answered, finishing the melon and standing up.

"Don't forget to drink some milk, dear," Elizabeth told her as she put her dishes in the sink.

"First I've got to find some real milk," Cornelia countered. "Instead of that pasteurized, processed, milk food product they sell in stores now." The other half of her diet was going absolutely organic, avoiding all the preservatives in modern food-market manufacturing. It was why she'd avoided the scrambled eggs; Her nature-attuned senses had noticed the chemical byproducts cooked into them. She wondered for a second why she hadn't noticed anything about the pancakes, then noticed the empty organic milk carton in the trash. Apparently somebody had had to compromise while cooking. She opened her senses next to the pancake plate still on the counter, and could tell one of the three left was from the right batch. She nabbed it with a smile, and waved at her mother. "Got it covered, Mom." Then she left out the sliding door into the back yard.

Jacob leaned down and rested his hand against Renesmee's neck, so they could 'talk'. _"Should I follow her, Nessie?" _The bronze-haired girl nodded.

"_Just listen, for now, Jake. I'll see if any of the others have ever heard of Hearts or Guardians before."_ She wished Grandpa Carlisle hadn't had to leave so fast. Worse come to worse, if none of the others knew anything, she'd ask to go with Grandma Esme to 'take him his dinner', and ask him then. Something told her they'd need the answers sooner rather than later.


	6. Gone

"_Somebody's always watching …"_

A Twilight / W.i.t.c.h. Crossover

By: _A J_

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

Chapter 6

Solange licked her lips, then grimaced. Apparently, some humans really _did_ live down to the old adage 'You are what you eat'. Years of chili-fries and stale beer had ruined any redeeming value the man's blood may have had beyond basic nutrition. _'Huh, maybe not even that,'_ she mused, still frowning. _'Still, he _did_ ask for it.'_

She kicked his drained corpse. "Never ask for a lady's attentions unless you're sure you want them." Not that he'd actually _asked,_ of course. She certainly didn't count demands made at knifepoint as asking. _'Speaking of which …'_

Solange picked up his discarded butterfly switchblade. With practiced ease, she flipped it open and shut a couple times. _'Just like Arden's …'_ she mused. The brief step down memory lane made her snarl, recalling what had become of her late lover at the hands of the Volturi. She furiously tamped down on the thoughts, but it gave her a new use for the blade.

Resolutely, she leaned over and slit the throat of her would-be rapist. She made the cut jagged intentionally, incidentally obliterating her own bite-marks. Then she methodically emptied his pockets, taking everything from the faded library card in his back pocket to the bus tokens rattling in his jean jacket. _'Your loss, Johnny Ling,'_ she tisked, reading the faded name on the card. _'If you had asked nicely, you may have lived to _enjoy_ meeting me … for a while.'_

Solange stretched, letting her new outfit resettle better. It had withstood the rigors of Johnny's 'attentions' - and her response - rather well. She admired the pleather bolero and miniskirt. _'Much better than that damnable coat from Mexico.'_ Traditionally cured, her previous leather jacket had stunk of horse-urine every time it had gotten wet. If she intended to get by in rainy Seattle, she certainly didn't intend to do it smelling like _that_.

With a last delicate kick of irritation to her late attacker, she crouched and jumped to the nearest rooftop, then took off uptown. She still had an appointment with Jason Jenks.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Cornelia walked until the great white house was completely out of eyesight. Even if the stories were true about superior vampire senses, she still knew a couple tricks of her own. She and the girls had worked out many ways to confound their enemies over the years, but for once, good old Earth technology would beat them all.

Immersing herself in her Element wasn't hard in the unspoiled Olympic forest. Reenergized, she pulled out her cell phone, and awakened it with an Elemental jolt. "Okay, Lucy, conference-call time," she murmured.

The latest model flatphone, 'Lucy' jumped to do her Guardian keeper's bidding. Accessing the web, Lucy dialed Elyon, Hay, Irma, Matt, Taranee, and Will's phones at the same time, and entered the seven … make that six, Elyon didn't answer … people into a private chatroom as they answered. She and Will's phone Brigit then set up a 'Heart's-only' lockdown on the Guardians' communication. It was a foolproof firewall paranoid Taranee had suggested when they had devised this Quintessense-inspired idea.

"Thanks, Lucy," Cornelia acknowledged, then started texting like crazy.

'_GUYS, WE MAY NEED SOME SERIOUS BACKUP OUT HERE. LILLIAN'S POSITIVE THE FAM MY CUZ IS MARRYING INTO ARE ALL VAMPIRES!'_

'_NFW! R WE TLKNG STKS ND CRCIFXS TM, HR?'_ Irma responded. She was obviously stinting on vowels with her T-9.

'_TOO BAD BUFFY'S NOT REAL,'_ Hay replied, to a chorus of _'LOL'_s. _'YOU'RE ALREADY ON THE WEST COAST.'_ Just as obviously, Hay was a much more accomplished texter; she and Irma had matching phones.

'_NOT HELPING, HAY-HAY,'_ Taranee countered. _'WE NEED SOME SOLID EVIDENCE, LIA.'_ The team had taken Peter's pet name for the Earth Guardian to heart, since it finally put to rest all except Irma's use of 'Corny'. _'WE ALSO NEED TO CONSULT SOME SOURCES OF GENUINE INFORMATION. NAMELY, NAPOLEON AND THE ORACLE.'_

'_WHICH MEANS WE'LL GET BACK TO YOU ASAP. TC, LIA,'_ Will sent, then signed off. Cornelia was quickly looking at a nearly-empty chatroom, only Irma and an until-now silent Matt Olsen still showing.

'_POST ME A PIC OF SOMEWHERE PRIVATE TO PORT, C. K, N & I CAN BE THERE IN HEARTBEATS.'_

'_SOON AS I CAN, M. LET ME GET A LITTLE FURTHER FROM THE HOUSE.'_ A second later she added, _'HOW R WE GONNA XPLAIN YOU SHOWING UP ALL OF A SUDDEN?'_

'_I'LL THINK OF SOMETHING.'_

'_SO,'_ Irma texted, while Cornelia was walking further up the little path worn between the Cullens' driveway and the stream that ran behind the house. _'R NY OF THM CUTE?'_

Cornelia rolled her eyes. _'YUP,'_ she typed back. _'AND ALL MARRIED.'_

'_LK THTS VR STPPD A GUY,'_ Irma replied, reminding Cornelia of Irma's abrupt – and angst-ridden – breakup with Matt's fellow bandmember Joel Campbell two weekends ago.

'_SO, WHAT? YOU'RE SAYING YOU'D RATHER DATE THE UNDEAD NOW? CAUSE I KNOW A CERTAIN ZOMBIE TECH-HEAD WHO'S DYING TO GO OUT WITH YOU.'_ Cornelia typed. Irma could freely call her 'Corny' until they graduated _college,_ for that one. She simply couldn't resist bringing up her Watery teammate's personal stalker, Martin Tubbs.

'_HEY, I'M DATELESS, NOT DEMENTED,'_ Irma countered. Cornelia couldn't help noticing that her typing had improved now that the subject had changed. Matt _'LOL'_ed. They all knew that if Irma ever said yes to a date with love-struck Martin, even once, it'd be all over except for the wedding invitations. He'd never let her get away again.

'_HOLD THAT THOUGHT, IRMY,'_ Cornelia told her when she got to the spot where path and driveway ended at the road together. She smelled diesel, and heard a truck rumbling up the curve from town. Turning, she took a shot of the path behind her with her camera's phone, and had Lucy send it to everybody elses' cells. _'HERE YOU GO, MATTTTTTTT'_

'_LIA?'_

'_CORNY?'_

Neither Matt nor Irma's repeated messages got an answer for long agonizing seconds, then …

'_apology, regent, guardian, mistress dropped me.'_

'_LUCY?!'_ Matt and Irma both typed frantically.

'_affirmative,'_ the awakened phone replied.

'_TELL ME EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED,'_ Matt demanded. Several tense seconds crept by while the two teens waited for an answer.

'_mistress sent you a picture, typed an accompaniment, then dropped me when somebody grabbed her.'_

'_GRABBED?'_ Irma.

'_GRABBED!'_ Matt. _'I'LL MEET YOU ALL THERE, I. ELLY'D NEVER FORGIVE ME IF I DIDN'T GO NOW.'_

'_WE GOT THE PICTURE TOO, M. HUGGLES & NAPOLEON'LL BE RIGHT BEHIND YOU WITH US.'_

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Jacob was several yards behind the annoying blonde girl when it happened. One minute she was intently texting away, including sending a shot from her camera-phone (he ducked out of the way when she spun around,) and the next minute a black van had come by, slowed down long enough for someone to slide open the side door and grab Cornelia, and zoomed off. If her quickly-muffled shriek was any clue, it wasn't done by any friends of hers, either.

'_Damn,'_ he thought. Wasting no time, he shifted on the move, letting his clothes shred away. _"Edward!" _he yelled mentally, not sure if his best friend's husband would hear him at this range. _"EDWARD! GET UP! EMERGENCY! Get home, tell Seth or Leah to shift, NOW!"_

Jacob tore off after the van, trying his damndest to keep it in sight; trying to see the license plate well enough for Rosalie or Bella to get a lead off the internet if he couldn't. He already had Cornelia's scent, and the truck's: the exhaust was distinctive of an older diesel engine. There weren't any windows either beyond the front three, and those had had a tint to them, making the driver and any passenger unidentifiable.

He was doing his hardest, keeping up while focusing on the plate (_"4 … E … V … R … 1 …"_ he managed to relay back to … whoever was listening for him …) when a sharp pain lanced through his left front leg.

With a yelp, Jake bowled over, tumbling to a halt several yards later against a sumac on the side of the road. Staring down at the jagged tree branch projecting a good foot from each side of his forelimb, he gagged. Incoherent thoughts chased each other through his head in the following pain-filled minutes. The only one he could recall later with any certainty, brought up by too many hours watching cartoons with Renesmee at Charlie's, was _'Heavens to Mergetroid! I've been shafted!'_


	7. Scramble

"_Somebody's always watching …"_

A Twilight / W.i.t.c.h. Crossover

By: _A J_

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

Chapter 7

In full Regent mode, Matt stepped through from Heatherfield to the spot Cornelia had sent them a picture of. He immediately found himself face-to-face with two women from his wildest groupie dreams. His golden mask betrayed nothing (fortunately!) as he ogled the blonde and burgundy-haired visions before him.

Rosalie and Esme, running at vampiric speed with the others close behind them, stopped dead still at the sight of the black-winged angel hovering in front of their mailbox. They stared at each other, the women taking in his gold mask with the glowing green eyes, his black-taloned hands and swaying tail, and his tense, corded muscular frame. Matt took two seconds to frankly admire their unearthly beauty, before noticing their matching golden eyes, and that they weren't _breathing_, for Heart's sake.

The red-haired one put a hand up to halt the headlong rush of the four men who appeared behind them, one of who Matt recognized. He was about to say something reassuring to Peter Cook, (he wasn't sure _what_ yet, but something was better than nothing, right?) when he saw the bear. The _BEAR?!_

Matt threw out a burst of blinding light, hoping to throw any present vampire's sight off for a few necessary seconds. Then he grabbed Peter from amid the group, summoned Cornelia's phone to his free hand, and took off straight up. None of this made sense! He had to find and get Lillian to safety, but ensuring his friend and Guardian ally's brother's well-being was a gratifying bonus.

Back at ground level, Edward, Esme, and the others exchanged frankly confused looks. None of them had ever seen anything like that … being, before. Leah whined, reminding them of their additional emergency.

'We know, Leah …" Edward started to say, still watching the new mystery figure disappear up and to the east.

"Emmett, Seth, help Leah get Jacob. Rosalie, Edward, you're our fastest. Cut the curve and see if you can catch sight of the vehicle Jacob described to you. I'll go back and call …" The others all gave her affirmative nods and took off to their separate tasks before she'd managed to say "Carlisle."

It had been less than a minute since a hastily-dressed Edward and Bella had arrived at the house. That had been less than a minute since Cornelia's snatching, and Jake's injury on the subsequent chase. Now, Esme looked up after the vanished angel and her now-missing newest houseguest. She couldn't help wondering, _'What next?'_

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Lillian was sitting on the top step of the first flight of stairs, looking out the window at where her sis had taken off down the path, and playing nervously with her new French braid. She had just enough hair now that the tufted end hung over her shoulder. She fussed with that as she fretted, wishing her familiar Napoleon were there under her nervous fingers instead. Petting him was more relaxing – for both of them – than any meditating technique ever invented.

A naughty idea came to her just then, and she ran back up the stairs quickly to her and Cornelia's room. If she had watched out the window a half-second longer, she would have seen the rest of the Cullens go running up the path after Cornelia.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Renesmee had never gone through the typical three-year-old's 'Why?' phase. Mostly, she and Carlisle figured, because she was only mentally three for about six hours, in the middle of the night, and she already knew how to read by then. But her body was just barely there chronologically, and some vestige of that natural childhood curiosity must have been waiting for just then.

She asked question after question of Harold and Elizabeth Hale while the rest of the Cullens were going about their 'morning chores'. She asked about their hometown of Heatherfield, she asked about them, and she asked about their girls. Then with a twist of her question after hearing about Lillian's best friend Chris Lair, she turned the conversation to his older sister Irma and the other girls she and Cornelia were friends with.

Hearing about the six girls and their steadfast friendship from the parent perspective added greatly to the boyfriend and brother's point of view Peter had regaled Aunt Rosalie (and the rest of them, through their superior hearing,) with last night. Now, she had names to go with the images she'd inadvertently gleaned from her newly-met cousin-in-law, Lillian.

She giggled when she couldn't stop the similarities she saw between the Cullen women and … what had Peter called them last night? Oh yeah, W.i.t.c.h.e. Apparently it was an acronym for the six girls' names. Will the redhead, leader of the girls, matched motherly Esme, always watching out for the others. Worldly, opinionated Rosalie and Cornelia Hale were practically twins, age-gap aside. Shy bookworm Bella had a sister-in-spirit in Peter's sibling Taranee, though they were both much more open now by all accounts. Aunt Alice may have met her match in free-spirited Hay Lin, and Renesmee saw a definite likeness between herself and Cornelia's friend Elyon, forced to grow up too soon by circumstances beyond all control. That just left Irma … until the young half-vampire remembered that her mother was a cop's daughter as well.

She giggled again as she thought of the boyfriends Peter and Elizabeth had both described. Like Esme, young Will had become entangled with a real rebel-boy. And what was Carlisle, but the original rebel: a vampire so sickened by his own nature that he had forcibly avoided ever partaken of human blood. Cornelia and Rosalie, family fashionistas, had both found themselves with laid-back jocks. Bella and Edward, the student and the musician, mirrored Taranee and her Bass-playing boyfriend Nigel. Sprightly Hay and Alice had tethered themselves to sensitive grounded souls Jasper and Eric, the sax-player. And Elyon's boyfriend Matt ..? Renesmee was sure some connection could be made between the dark-haired boy both her informal informants had mentioned in passing, and her imprinted intended, Jacob.

Thoroughly self-distracted now, she got up from the table and put the last of the breakfast dishes in the new dishwasher machine Carlisle had gotten Esme. It was the ultimate in-joke among the Cullens; the last thing they needed around the house was a timesaving device.

'_Time for me to get better acquainted with Lily … an,"_ Nessie self-corrected as she took off up the stairs in search of her (mental, at least,) age-mate.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Napoleon awoke with a start. Something must have happened with Lillian. He stretched and stood, then hopped up to the windowsill that ran the length of the Hales' front window. As a magical familiar with free access to the great outdoors whenever he needed it, he had dismissed the need of a kitty-sitter for the three days his human family was slated to be out-of-town. Moot point now, he mused as he saw the unmistakable disturbance of Air that told him he was about to have visitors.

Sure enough, the patio door opened without visible help, and a series of soft footfalls sounded. Napoleon leaped from the sill to the couch as the door closed, and the blinds as well. With a sigh, three girls and a dormouse popped into view in the middle of the living room of the Hale apartment.

"_Finally!_ That's gotta be the longest I've ever kept all of us invisible while flying," Hay Lin said, with a swipe of her forehead.

"Why didn't you all just teletransport here?" Napoleon chuckled. "There's obviously something going on with Lillian out west. What's up?"

"Vampires," Taranee spat without preamble. Huggles the dormouse jumped from Will's shoulder to land next to his fellow Regent. "Can you tell us anything close to realistic, or are we doomed to watching the Hollywood monster movie greats?"

"Forget all that," the black cat started. "There're a dozen different breeds of vampires. Each has its own abilities and weaknesses. The only thing most of them have in common is an aversion to sunlight and fire. You can't depend on the first until you know for certain, and running in flinging fireballs, while tempting, could just get innocent bystanders killed." He gave impulsive Hay a quelling glance, and she grinned back.

Taranee cleared her throat. "What about the stake and crucifix defense?"

"_Loads_ more subtle," Will deadpanned, and Hay giggled.

"Stakes are good against the same number as the sun. Not necessarily the same _kinds_, mind," Napoleon told them with a toothy grin. "Crucifixes, well … it's the faith of the wielder in the God represented that has the desired effect, actually. Taranee here, with her religious upbringing back in Sesamo, would already be able to fend them off. Hay as well, with her immersion in all things Chinese. Your only problem _there_ is finding the right totem to fend off each breed, doll. The Chinese knew 'em all, but damned if they wrote 'em down for posterity - or public safety - like Bram Stoker." The three girls laughed, and he preened at the audience appreciation. "You five have the best weapon possible in your connections to the Heart of Candracar. Keep each other in mind, and remember, your primary goal is …"

He never got to finish the sentence. Napoleon disappeared in a rainbow shimmer of power before any of the girls could so much as gasp his name out.


	8. Bold

"_Somebody's always watching …"_

A Twilight / W.i.t.c.h. Crossover

By: _A J_

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

Chapter 8

Ever since finding out about her powers, Lillian had hit the library and the world-wide-web and read through every new-age book and site she could find. As she saw it, her role as the Heart of Earth was somewhere between personal empowerment and universal magic. That was how it sounded at least, especially after she'd spent a quiet night with Elyon Brown right after she found out about her powers. The Heart of Meridian had given her best friend's little sister the best advice she could, but basically told Lillian to _'not break anything that'll be missed'._

Hit-and-miss research and practice since then had given the young blonde Heart an array of tools she could use for just this kind of morning. Digging her own small make-up pouch (Which held everything _except_ make-up!) out of her suitcase, Lillian lay out her supplies.

"_Let's see, we need a circle of power, thus …'_ she thought, scrawling a rough four-foot ring around her with the leftover stick of pink sidewalk chalk she'd kept from last summer. _'Now to call the corners …'_ Lillian set out the four little tealite candles Hay Lin had helped her pick out as Elemental representatives, and with a _very_ careful micro-spark, lit them in turn as she called out the classic Elements.

"_Aqua,"_ she murmured, as she lit the water lily-and-sea cucumber candle. _"Ignis,"_ she said next, for the unscented red candle's light. It was, they had both felt, the closest they could get to representing true flame. Then came a simple pine tealite, for her ever-growing-taller older sister and her Element. _"Terra,"_ she intoned, then added _"Aero,"_ as she ignited the last one, appropriately called 'summer breeze'. Then Lillian drew a simple stick-figure cat in the center of her circle, and picked up her final magical instrument.

It was an old craft pin, four inches long, with a large aquamarine ball for a head. She'd picked it because it matched her eyes - and because no one, not even adventurous Irma or her ever-protective Regent Matt, would let her have a real athame. So in lieu of a ceremonial dagger to the palm, which she'd read was the traditional method used in magic, Lillian poked her thumb. She let a large drop collect and fall on top of her chalk doodle. The stick figure of powder soaked it up as she pinched a red handkerchief over her self-inflicted wound.

Focusing now on her picture, she intoned the final Word of Power. She'd overheard it from Will Vandom several weeks ago, when she'd bore terrified witness to one of their fierce battles with a sorcerer from another dimension. Firmly picturing her desire, she said "Quintessence!"

There was a _'Pop!'_ a shimmer of rainbow light, and all four candles went out. Her black cat Napoleon appeared right in the middle of her drawn circle, obliterating her bloody pictogram. He was facing the wrong way, and talking.

" … Lillian and her family's safety …" He ran down as he took in the abrupt change in scenery, and whipped around lightning-fast. Lillian scooped him up in a tight hug, crying his name in relief.

"_Oh, Napholeom!"_ she said into his fur. Parting just enough, she continued unobstructed. "You wouldn't _believe_ what's going on out here!"

"Yeah I would," the abused familiar managed around her stranglehold. "Vampires, right?"

"Corny told you already?" Lillian gasped, holding him to arm's length.

"Well, she told the other Guardians, and they came to ask me for tactical advice, but basically, yeah," he chuckled in return. "Ah, can ya put me down, kiddo? This isn't exactly dignify …" His voice cut as he stiffened in her grip, sensing a nearby presence. _"Company, Lils,"_ he sent to her telepathically. She stiffened as well, and let him go to drop to his feet soundlessly.

"_How many?"_ she asked him the same way. Where she had to make physical contact to telepathically 'talk' with her sister or the other Guardians, she had found she could freely converse with her Regents at great distances, out to over half a mile once, even. Elyon, fully realized in her own powers, didn't have any such limits among their circle of magical associates, but had to touch unempowered individuals like Caleb to include them. Taranee had likened it once to radio, and described it as 'every Heart had their own frequency'.

"_Just one …"_ Napoleon started to respond, when Matt broke in from somewhere nearby.

"_Napoleon, are you all here already? We've got a major situation cat-man."_

"Not yet Mattie …"

"_Matt? _Yes!_ Come here,"_ Lilian interrupted her Regents, and sent the older boy a mental image of the guest room she was in.

"_Gotcha, Lillian. Stand back, I'll need extra room," _Matt said, and teletransported himself and Peter Cook from the top of the Olympic Redwood he'd just landed them both in. He had to give Taranee's older brother credit; the Af. Am. hadn't screamed outright during their impromptu flight, nor was he freaking out now, as Shagon the dark angel grabbed his arm again, told him "Don't be afraid, I'm a friend," and pulled him into a bright green lightning storm.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

No sooner had Napoleon disappeared than Irma showed up. She was out of breath from running the four flights of stairs to the Hales' apartment after driving straight from her house.

"You … guys … wait!" she yelped between gulps of air. "Something … happened … to Corny … after you all … signed off!" Irma took a deep breath, and huffed it out. "Matt went to Washington, you guys. Cornelia's been kidnapped!"

"Kidnapped?!" the other three all cried. Mister Huggles started to chitter in alarm, and Will scooped him back up.

"Alright, straight to Candracar, and hopefully we can get some quick answers," the red-haired leader said. Almost as an afterthought, she transformed Irma when she took the Heart out. Then she opened a fold in reality, and the four Guardians flew through to the Temple at the Center of All.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Renesmee froze when she got to the top of the steps. There had been a glimmer of bright light from under the door of the girls' shared room, and now she could hear voices. One was Lillian, which made sense, but the other was a strangely-pitched male voice with a New Yorker's accent, and _it was talking about vampires!_

Her barely-ten heart threatening early arrhythmia, Nessie advanced quietly to hear the conversation better. It died out suddenly as she got next to the doorway. Then a green light played out from under the closed door, and a new voice was heard from the room, one she knew. _'Can't be …'_ she thought, because there was no way he could have gotten there, past her, in the time he'd had.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Peter Cook had seen many weird things in his nineteen years, from blue-painted vagabonds with a serious hate-on for cheerleaders, to giant snakes and spiders in a bookstore. But when the angel from Hell spoke up in his girlfriend's best friend's boyfriend's voice, Pete started to seriously question his reality. The green light enveloped him, and he felt a strange pull at his innards. The next thing he knew, he and the dark angel were standing in the room Lia and Lillian had bunked down in last night.

"H-hey, Lils …" he began, when he spotted his girlfriend's little sister. He saw her cat next to her, and was about to ask which suitcase she'd stowed the oversized feline in, when his new black-winged friend knelt before her.

Pete couldn't have known Matt was doing it simply to get to her eye-level. "Lillian, we have a problem."

"I'll say we have. _Vampires!"_ she muttered hoarsely. "I think it's …"

"No. A different one," Matt countered before she could get started. Once on a rant, Lillian was harder to head off than a babbling Hay Lin. He sighed; there was no easy way out of this. "Cornelia's been taken."

"Taken?!" Lillian, Napoleon, and Peter's jaws all dropped. Only Pete had had any inkling of the coming news.

Several minutes ago, after Cornelia and the two younger girls had left the kitchen, Bella and Edward had burst in. They'd whispered something urgently to the other Cullens about Jacob and Cornelia, and they had all gone out the door at once.

Peter had followed at the mention of Lia's name, and they'd all been clumped together on the lawn, him and Seth the Chauffer at the back. His sister Leah had disappeared, but Pete figured she was the one who let out the giant guard dog that appeared at Rose and Esme's heels.

Then the dark angel had appeared, looked at all of them from behind his inscrutable golden mask, then grabbed Peter up and brought him on their glowing way here.

Bright he may be, but Peter was only up to one major puzzle at a time. He decided to tackle them in order. "Lillian, who _is_ this guy?" There: that should take the lion's share of the confusion out of the situation.

"Huh? Oh! Uh … _'Ahem!'_ It's … Matt. Matt Olsen … _sorry …"_ she murmured at the end to the angel. Peter was still reeling from that shock, and Matt (still in his Shagon guise) was just nodding up at him sheepishly, when there was a thud outside the bedroom door.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

After her millisecond's vision of the Guardians this morning, Renesmee had been turning the whole idea of magical superheroes over and over in her head. She still hadn't come to any conclusions, but she had two people she definitely wanted to ask advice of beside her grandfather Carlisle. But suddenly knowing that these magical girls had allies made her want to revive what her mother had jokingly called their 'phone tree' and summon reinforcements of her own.

She was whirling in the hall to do just that with the antique telephone on the desk right behind her when she bumped into it in her distraction. The resulting _'Thump'_ and her inadvertent gasp would change everything.


	9. Unplanned

"_Somebody's always watching …"_

A Twilight / W.i.t.c.h. Crossover

By: _A J_

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

Chapter 9

Sally Sloan took her envelope of new identification from J. Jenks. "Thank you, Jason," she said, shaking his hand – and quietly passing him the preloaded debit card for the agreed-upon amount of 3000 Euros. He didn't even blink twice at the chill of her hand; she'd been holding her chilled tomato juice for several minutes first. Solange grinned inwardly at that. What had felt pleasantly cool to her stony skin was enough to raise goosebumps across the back of his hand. They both settled back to their brunches, and she took a surreptitious look at the contents of the envelope under the table.

Across the napkin in her lap spread a new passport, a driver's license, a birth certificate, and a social security card, all with the name Sally Orlene Sloan. "Orlene?" she asked in a low voice.

Jason smiled. "It's French, I think. I remember seeing it in a book."

"Hmm, yes, and pretty, as all things French tend to be. I did wonder though … you didn't have me wait to pick this up. I was always under the impression that these things take a couple days, at least." She took pains to subdue her accent as they conversed, knowing that Sally Sloan of … she looked back down at her new birth certificate … Sheridan, Wyoming would not sound like she'd just moved from the Balkans.

Jason's smile turned rueful. "This one's all on me, actually. Most customers have a new name in mind when they come to me. Occasionally though, a person will ask for _'ahem!'_ 'Whatever you've got'." He dropped his voice to a bass for the last part. "It was pointed out by my assistant when I made up this particular ID that nobody would want the initials SOS."

"Why would the initials make a … oh," she chuckled, as she thought it out. "So?"

"Well, when you told my contact that you just wanted an 'S' name, I remembered this one was still in the office. Problem and solution," he shrugged, and went back to his eggs.

"With the added benefit of removing unwanted documents from your keeping, hmm?" she murmured lowly, finishing her juice. He nodded his assent, with a tip of his coffee cup her way.

"Just so. Now, was there anything else you think you might need?"

"With these, all else becomes available," Solange, now Sally, replied, tucking all her new ID back in its envelope. "_Tisic pozehnani,_ (*1) Mister Jenks. Enjoy your breakfast." She stood fluidly, lay the rumpled twenty she'd removed from Johnny Ling an hour before on the table, and disappeared without another word.

Jason watched her go with a sad smile. So many of these beautiful people had approached him lately, and he still had no idea about their business. He briefly entertained the thought of a mass exodus by the country's supermodels, then grinned it away. He'd probably never know. He grinned again when he realized she'd paid for his breakfast as well as her own.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

The door burst open on the hallway, and Renesmee found herself facing a shocking sight. Lillian Hale stood between a six-foot humanoid black cat and a dark-winged, golden-masked angel. The cat's claws were out, and its lips were pulled back from its teeth. The angel's eyes were glowing green, and so were his clenched fists. But the strangest part of the tableau was ten-year-old Lillian, standing grim-faced in the middle with a sharp wooden stake aimed right at Renesmee.

With a gulp, Nessie set the phone in her hand back on its cradle and stepped away, hands raised. They stared at each other for several tense seconds, then Peter Cook spoke up from behind the trio.

"So who's out there?" he asked. Lillian sighed, stirring up the little dust in the hallway. She lowered the stake though, and her companions both relaxed perceptibly, if not completely.

"It's the littlest vampire," the cat-creature said, and Renesmee blinked. So he had been the one with the New York accent. Then that meant … she turned to look (stare, actually,) at the gold-masked man.

"You're … Matt?" she asked. The dark angel nodded once, then in a flash of bright light, he and the cat-man both disappeared, to be replaced by a shaggy-haired boy in his late teens, and a large black housecat. "Wow."

"You can say that again, Nessie," Peter said, coming over with the others now that the doorway wasn't nearly as full.

'_At least HE still looks normal,'_ Renesmee thought with relief. "What's going on here?" she asked him, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible. Peter gave her a blank look, then they both turned to look at the other three.

"Well …" Matt began, as the most-informed of them at the moment. "This is what I know so far …"

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Paul Yin broke off the kiss with his fiancé Rachel Black at the sound of the distant howl. "Damn, that's Seth," he swore, giving her an apologetic grin. When she rolled her eyes, he chuckled.

"Why don't you people get cell phones?" she grumbled, sliding off his lap.

"Because this is quicker," he replied, standing and shucking off his sweatpants. Before her appreciative whistle had died out, (_'Lord, don't let Jake ever hear that,'_ he prayed with an inner smile; he _liked_ his nose the shape it was,) he had shifted to his gigantic silver wolf shape in her tiny bedroom. Part of him rumbled happily as she ran tentative fingers through his coarse fur, even as he was turning the rest of his attention to the mental communication with the youngest Clearwater. _"'sup, Seth?"_

"The usual impending disaster, where the Cullens are concerned," the rangy teen male sent back, his 'voice' raising as he came closer to La Push. "Except with a HELL of a twist. One of the wedding guests just got kidnapped from their front lawn, and Jake got hurt trying to tail them." He opened his mind up so Paul could catch the pertinent details without Seth having to explain it all, and a low growl came back to him through their link. Rachel took her hands away from Paul's ears nervously, and he could only give her a comforting nuzzle. She'd hear all about it soon enough; Seth was rushing their way.

"_What was that other thing about, Seth?"_ he asked, returning the image of the black-winged angel who'd disappeared after a blinding flash in front of the Cullen driveway.

"_An unrelated mystery, which we're still trying to solve, Paul. Ask the elders before I get there to see if they've ever heard of Guardians."_

"_Gotcha. What's your E T A?"_

"'_bout three minutes,"_ Seth returned, and Paul could feel him pushing himself faster through their link. "_I just passed the treaty line."_

Paul transformed back with a grin that held through his shift. Shaking his hair out of his eyes, he leaned in and gave Rachel another kiss, then reached for her phone extension. Luck was with the Quileute tribe today, if not with his love life. He reached a resigned hand down for his discarded pants, even as he talked to Billy and Old Quil, who were already on the phone together. Rachel gasped when he relayed that Jacob had been hurt, but he smiled at her reassuringly, letting her and the two elders know that Seth had already told him it wasn't serious, just inconvenient.

Pants back on, Rachel grinning naughtily at him again, Paul started calling the other pack-members that were still at home, starting with Sam ... who didn't answer.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

"So wait … your sister, and her friends, the ones I saw as faeries, are the Guardians of the Infinite Dimensions, and all the rest of this is just a horrible coincidence?" Renesmee asked, as she and Lillian were going back down the stairs, Peter and Matt in reluctant tow. Napoleon was wrapped protectively around Lillian's neck. Even if he wasn't worried that Nessie wouldn't suddenly turn on his Mistress and drain her dry, he wasn't taking any chances with the rest of her (now confirmed) vampiric family.

"Goddess, I hope so," the young Heart of Earth replied. "But it still doesn't help us solve the biggest prob, does it?" She looked back over her shoulder at Matt. "Any luck yet?" He looked up from his phone, which he'd been using along with Cornelia's cell Lucy, trying to reach any of the other four members of W.i.t.c.h.

"None yet, but if they're all in Candracar talking to the Council about vampires, they aren't gonna receive calls, are they?" he sighed, closing both phones. He'd also tried reaching Cornelia telepathically, but she was apparently out of his personal range. This was a nightmare. The Guardians exposed to not just one or two people, but a whole community, and one of them incapacitated to boot. Add to that the revelation of the Heart of Earth, however inadvertently, and he was willing to bet that _nobody's_ day could get worse. Then Peter finally spoke up.

"All this on top of a wedding? This is starting to sound like a supernatural soap opera." Renesmee bowled to a stop at the landing she'd just reached with a gasp.

"Oh, oh God, Aunt Alice …" she blurted, turning fear-filled eyes to the others. They all started running down the rest of the stairs, reaching the kitchen as Esme was coming in the front door, Emmett and Leah right behind her with a bleeding Jacob slung between them. "JAKE!" Nessie cried, forgetting all else at the sight of her battered someday boyfriend.

While barely ten, Renesmee already had most of the training of an EMT, and she set about bossing the two older wolves in getting Jacob into the living room and keeping his arm elevated while she flitted back upstairs to their small medical supply room and down again with gauze, wrap, scissors, needle and suture thread, and enthusiastically (if not expertly) began righting Jake's wrongs.

Esme gave a doubletake at the sight of Peter Cook, calmly coming down the stairs not minutes after she'd seen him disappear into the air with the dark angel. The second boy and the cat she noticed peripherally, but addressed the young African-American first. "Peter? Care to explain what happened?"

He blushed beautifully, and even with decades of fighting her nature, Esme had to suppress the gulp she felt at the quickening of his pulse. "Ah … I don't think I'm qualified to explain any of this, Missus Cullen." He turned helplessly to the other young man next to him.

"And you are?" Esme asked, extending a hand in friendly greeting.

"Matt Olsen, Missus Cullen," the black-haired boy replied. She saw Leah's head whip towards them out of the corner of her eye, and added that to her list of questions. For now …

"Matt, hmm? One of the boyfriends of one of Cornelia's friends, right?"

"Her best friend, Elyon. We were all talking on the phone together just now when she was grabbed, and I came right out." They both knew he was leaving out all the details, but this was already a bad time to be quibbling about catching up. "Our friends are on their way as well, and hopefully we can find Cornelia quickly." He didn't add that he hoped that for the idiotic perpetrator's sake. One had to be a few slices short of a loaf to take on the telekinetic Earth Guardian willingly. Or equally powerful. That thought made him cringe inwardly, but he did his best to keep it to himself. The last thing he wanted was to give Lillian something else to worry about.

"_WHAT?!"_ they all heard Harold Hale yelling from the kitchen.

"Uh-oh, Dad knows," Lillian blurted. Everyone except an over-bandaged Jacob hurried into the other room.

Bella was on the kitchen phone, talking to her father. "That's right Dad, one of our wedding guests. Cornelia Hale, blonde, waist-length, about six foot …"

"Six-two," Pete amended. Bella rolled her eyes and continued.

"… last seen wearing a yellow shoulderless summer frock, leaf green windbreaker, diamond stud earrings, and …" she looked over at her daughter, then flicked her eyes down for a second.

Catching on, Renesmee told her "Tan Jimmy Choo flats." Bella relayed that, '_Mm-Hmm'_ed her way through the next couple things her father asked, then looked back at the group around her.

"Is Jake still conscious?"

"_Yes,"_ they heard him bellow from the living room. Lillian and Renesmee giggled; they couldn't help it, despite the situation.

"They need a description of the vehicle," Bella told him, carrying the handset out to his recumbent spot on the couch. She handed him the phone, and tried not to laugh too hard while he told Chief Swan about the van.

"Black Dodge cargo van, all-wheel drive, diesel, license plate … four-echo-victor-romeo-one … I didn't see the last one before I got derailed, Charlie, sorry … _What?" _He hissed the last up at Bella, who was hiding a grin behind her hand unsuccessfully.

She waved a hand in the direction of his left arm, which Renesmee had not only stitched up and bandaged to a fair-thee-well, but also completely immobilized by strapping it to his body. He just looked down at the sea of cotton for a moment, shrugged the shoulder he could still move, and returned to his conversation with Charlie.

"It was headed north on Route 101, and they left enough tread their tail end was probably full." He dropped to a whisper, barely loud enough to be heard over the phone. _"Ed and Rose are following best they can, Charlie. Hopefully they find out more."_

"_I'll pretend I didn't hear that last part,"_ Charlie whispered back, making Bella grin wider. _"All right, I'll get moving on this best _I_ can, kids. If this is a kidnapping, though, we won't have a choice. The feds'll come in on it too. Take care."_ They both hung up at the same time.

"Well, now we just wait for the cavalry to arrive, Rose and Edward to call back or come back, or our mystery abductor to ask for a ransom, right?" Leah asked, looking around at the others.

"Sounds about right," Matt told the tall girl reassuringly. He glanced down at his furry fellow Regent, still around Lillian's neck. _"Or we could just wait for Lia to wake up and rescue herself,"_ he told them both telepathically. Lillian had to smother a hysterical laugh, while Napoleon started purring in agreement.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Rosalie had her phone cupped out of the wind against her cheek, telling Jasper everything that had come up that morning with their distant cousins from Heatherfield.

When Alice had come up with the extraordinary idea of inviting any distant remaining relatives, the others had all been floored. But after some internet genealogy searching, the bride and groom had both found they had a couple living relatives. Alice had therefore invited her niece Cynthia and her daughter Melody, and Jasper had called up Dennis Whitlock, a descendant of a third cousin who he barely remembered.

Rosalie had thought that the groom's side needed at least one more body, to fill up what was turning out to be an extremely slim guest list, and did a little digging of her own. _("Aren't you a Hale, now, after all?"_ had been her argument to Jasper.) That was when she had found out about her parents youngest son, named Russell. Russell had gone on to fight in WWII, married, and then died in Korea, leaving behind a son named Kent. Kent had stayed out of Vietnam by becoming a Financial Law student, and fathered Harold, who'd followed in his father's footsteps as a consultant at Heatherfield Bank and Trust.

Harold was the only Hale left on her side of the family since his father's death back in 2000, (the familty in-joke was that he'd died of the Millennium Bug,) and with only daughters, apparently the last. So Rose had had Jasper invite him and his family too. That their younger daughter was Nessie's apparent age was a bonus, as the Cullens always fretted that the girl wasn't getting the experiences of normal childhood, like friends.

Now the two west-coast Hales were back where they had started, looking at an anything-but-ordinary family get-together. _"So our nieces are magical, and the older one's been kidnapped, along with her boyfriend?"_ Jasper asked, much too calmly.

"That about sums it up, Jaz. Ed and I are on the trail of that right now, but we wondered why Alice hasn't had anything to say about … _any_ of this."

"_At this point, I think she's running on fried neurons alone,"_ Jasper answered. _"This wedding has her looking in so many directions that she hasn't tried to see anything about anyone beyond each guest getting to town safely, especially since that airline scare in Detroit. If she's gotten any extra visions, she hasn't said word one, Rose."_

"If this is anything like her trouble spotting the Quileute Wolves, she may just be 'out of the loop' where these girls're concerned," Edward piped up from next to Rosalie, hurdling a fallen sapling without even breaking stride. The end of the next curve in the road was right ahead, and they were hoping to find this damnable van again. The image of it was seared in his mind from Jacob's mental sendings.

Just then, his phone rang as well. "Hello?"

"_Edward Anthony Masen Cullen, don't you nonchalantly 'Hello' me! What is going ON?!"_ Alice yelled over the new Razr Nessie had gotten him for father's day.

"You mean you _haven't_ seen anything?" Rose and Edward both asked, sharing a worried glance.

"All I know is that Esme's not answering, Bella, Rose and Jaz' phones're busy, and there's a huge blank spot where my WEDDING should be!" Alice vented, and they could hear what sounded like crunching plastic in the background behind her. "Poo, and I just got done detailing her too," the seeress swore. Edward winced as he jumped over the last log onto the roadside. That hadn't been plastic Alice had shattered; she'd just done something horrible and expensive to her new yellow Porsche. He glanced around. No sign of the van yet, though he thought he could hear it still approaching. He glanced at Rosalie.

"Bored-out four-fifty diesel with a heavy load," she replied to his arched eyebrow. He nodded, once again duly amazed that his most glamorous sister was the grease-monkey. He had to hide an inappropriate smirk when he thought that it was another thing she and his wife's friend Jacob had in common, besides their love for Renesmee and an amazing talent for telling exactly the wrong joke at the right time (usually at each other's expense).

"I'll call you back," Edward and Rosalie both said, closing their phones and putting them away. They crouched to leap at the fast-approaching vehicle they could hear, and waited.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

*1: Apologies to our Slavic readers, but this is the closest equivalent I could type with an English keyboard setting, and I wasn't sure how it would post if I adjusted it for this. For our non-Slavic readers, this means "A thousand blessings," something Solange picked up from her deceased Irish lover, Arden.


	10. Drunk

"_Somebody's always watching …"_

A Twilight / W.i.t.c.h. Crossover

By: _A__J_

(Standard Disclaimer Applies)

Chapter 10

"What a wonderful snafu we're having," Irma jibed while they waited for the agitated Council of Candracar to come to its senses and give them some kind of advice. Between the threat of vampires to the Heart of Earth, and the forced disappearance of the Guardian of Earth, they had plenty to complain about. Unfortunately, that was _all_ they were doing, at the moment.

"_Enough!__"_ Halinor telepathically thundered out finally. The former Guardian of Fire was the W.i.t.c.h. girls' first, best champion on the Council, not least because they'd once saved her from psychic slavery. "One thing at a time," she continued. "Oracle, do you see any danger to the Heart of Earth in this?"

Himerish, Oracle of the Council of Infinite Dimensions and _de_ _facto_ leader of Candracar, stood and turned to face the Council. "The young Miss Hale is safe, for the foreseeable future. Her role in the happenings on their homeworld's 'West Coast' is minor, despite the revelation of vampires in their midst. Some of them are in fact old family-members, merely wishing to share their glad nuptial day with distant descendants. The Earth Guardian's abduction is an unrelated but regrettably more pressing matter. Are you five," and he turned to give a wan smile to Kor Huggles standing on Will's shoulder, "prepared to save her? Without revealing yourselves, if possible?"

"We'll do our best," Taranee said, seconded by the others. The five magical heroes regrouped, and Will opened a fold back to Earth, using Cornelia's last sent image as a guide.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Alice Cullen was stamping one foot in irritation, hard enough to leave an imprint of her shoe in the tarmac of the Sea-Tac airport. She was helplessly trying to 'look' for her new niece-in-law Cornelia, about whom Jasper had called and told her all the currently-pertinent details after they'd both been disconnected from Rosalie and Edward. "C'mon, flight 976, land already," she muttered distractedly, letting her fingers flow through apps on her iPhone while her inner eye was looking for Rosalie's great-niece. She was still waiting for her own niece Cynthia, as well as Jasper's cousin Dennis. The pair was on the same NWA flight with Cynthia's daughter from Dallas to Seattle, where Alice had said she would pick them all up when they had called.

Just as she was catching a glimmer of an image of a black van in her mind's eye, a newly-familiar voice called out "Yoo-hoo! _Allll_-iiiice! Here we are!" The vision shattered with her broken concentration, and Alice turned to meet her long-lost family at last.

"Wow, we could be sisters," her great-niece Melody said, her Mississippi accent as pronounced as her physical resemblance to Alice. "Ah thought you was kiddin' Mama. She looks just laike me!" Melody stepped forward and Dennis Whitlock, trailing behind with the trio's luggage on a large trolley, whistled at the sight. Except for an extra inch to the length of Melody's hair, and the lack of designer labels to her clothes, the two Brandon women were uncanny mirrors.

"No foolin'" Dennis yelped, staring at the two. Alice smiled winningly his way. He was a decade older than Melody, as well as her and Jasper's 'apparent' age, but still acted like a teenager himself.

"Is this everything?" Alice asked, pointing at the luggage trolley.

"Ayep," Dennis drawled good-naturedly with a grin. Alice popped the trunk of her Porsche open with the button on her key fob, rolling her eyes.

"Load it up, cowboy. We've got something happening on the old homestead, and we need to mosey," she told him with a return smile. He chuckled, and started stacking suitcases in her yellow beauty while she helped Melody and Cynthia climb into the tiny back seat.

"Say, what happened to your spoiler, Alice?" Dennis asked as the pair took the front seats.

"Oh, I got too close to the Little League field last week, and it took a foul ball to the aft," she lied smoothly, still berating herself inwardly for the damage she'd done to her baby during her phone call to Edward. Turning the engine over, she fast-shifted and steered them away from the airport and Seattle, and towards Forks.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Gravel crunched in the driveway as the household heard the squeal of old brakes. Leah looked up worriedly. "That ... that's Sam's truck. Em usually drives it now, though ..." She led the complements of the Cullen household out the front door to find that yes, it was definitely Emily ... and Sam was with her.

"'sup, Sam?" Jake called from the porch, where he was propping the door open with his good arm for everybody else.

"Hey, Jake, we just stopped by on our way back from Port Ang ... el ... es ... What happened to your arm?" The porch full of vampires all assumed their 'too-still-to-be-real' acts, waiting to hear how Jacob would answer.

"This? Oh, it's nothing, man. Just Nurse Nessie here," the Quileute lad responded, nodding at his imprint, "getting a little carried away over a scratch." Most of the adults chuckled, but Harold and Elizabeth looked askance at him in sudden additional worry.

Emily stepped forward, grabbing both of Leah's hands. The female werewolf noticed a hard lump against one knuckle and glanced down. What she glimpsed made her take a second, longer look. "Ohmigod, Em ... is that ..?"

"Yes!" Emily Young actually giggled. She held her hand up for the other women behind them to see as well. "We're officially engaged!" Her expression slowly fell as she saw the less-than-enthusiastic expressions around them, though. "What's wrong?" Emily asked, her scarred cheek pulling down as she frowned with worry.

"My daughter's niece has been abducted," Esme said without preamble, "from our own front lawn." There was no mistaking the rage in her slight frame, and even battle-hardened shifters Sam and Leah looked away from her eyes, which had already turned a disconcerting black.

Harold cleared his throat. Bella jumped to the rescue, her recent transformation still keeping her more in-tune with the humans in their midst.

"Sam, Emily, these are the Hales, from West Virginia; Harold, his wife Elizabeth, and their younger daughter, Lillian. Their older girl Cornelia is the one who's gone missing." She turned to the distraught parents. "Harold, Elizabeth, meet Sam Uley and his fiancé Emily." She couldn't help the grin she had as she announced it. At least somebody's day held some good news. "Sam's a deputy for my dad, Sheriff Swan. Odds are he's just seconds away from getting called in on our case, anyway."

Renesmee and Lillian both bounded forward to see Emily's new bling, "_Ooh_"ing, "_Aah_"ing and giggling together like normal ten-year-old girls, while Bella, Elizabeth, and Leah all said quiet congratulations. Sam stepped toward Jacob, and the taller boy told him the morning's essential news in a whisper. Sam nodded afterwards.

"The pack knows?" he asked quietly. Jake nodded.

"Seth went to tell everyone, and to ask about these Guardians, whoever they are." Neither shifter was aware of the two little girls avidly listening in on their murmured conversation.

Lillian latched a hand onto Nessie, and asked telepathically _"Is __it __safe __for __Sam __to __know __about __us?"_ Renesmee, once over the shock of a new mental communicator, nodded.

_"He __and __Jake __are __part __of __the __supernatural __defenses __of __the __area,"_ she responded, and showed the young Heart the truth about the Quileute boys before them. Lillian gulped in wonder, nodded back in acknowledgement, and then brought her two present Regents up to speed as well.

_"Somehow,__ I'm __not __surprised,"_ Napoleon purred around her throat. _"It__ makes __sense__ that__ a __group__ of __...__ What'd__ they __call__ themselves? __'Vegetarian'__ vampires,"_ and Napoleon's chuckle shook Lillian's shoulders, _"Would__ end __up __best__ friends__ with __the __local __changers."_ His purr ratcheted up a level. _"Think __I'd __be __considered__ an__ honorary __tribe__member?"_

_"I__ think__ they'd__ take__ Kor__ in__ first,__Cat-man,"_ Matt broke in, a grin coloring his sending. "You _I__ think__ they'd__ rather__ tree."_ Napoleon almost fell off Lillian's shoulders between her laughter and his, and she nabbed Nessie's hand again to share the insider's joke. Their muffled laughing caught the attention of the sharper-eared others around them.

"Alright, what's up with you two?" Esme asked them quietly, now convinced the pair knew more than all the adults. The girls shared a glance, and then Renesmee set her hand against Esme's cheek, linking her grandmother to both girls at once. They filled her in as succinctly as possible with the amount of topics they had to cover, and the red-haired woman shook her head afterwards, dazzled. "My, if that's half of what Edward hears all the time, it's a wonder he stays anywhere around people still," she breathed afterwards.

"Man, this is getting deep," Peter murmured to Matt.

"Deep?" Matt countered, remembering a phrase both Heatherfield Swim-team members Will and Mandy had used before. "Something tells me we're still in the shallow end of our troubles."

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Cornelia came to with a headache. She tried to sit up, only to find that she was tied up tightly, with something over her. Concentrating, she used her telekinesis to lift what was covering her, to learn it was a ratty Navaho-print fleece throw, and she was in the dingy darkened back of an uncarpeted cargo van. For the time being, she assumed it was the one she'd seen turning the corner in front of the Cullens' place before she blacked out, and let the throw drop back down. Holding it up was making her headache worse. Instead, she opened her mind up, reaching out mentally for Lillian. Maybe she wasn't too far away yet to 'scream' for help.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

Rosalie and Edward were leaping for the passenger side of the van when Cornelia's telepathic cry for help swept out. Edward took it full-force to the frontal lobes, and dropped like a rock screaming with pain. Rosalie hesitated for a microsecond, then swung her fingertips out to catch hold of the van, knowing Edward would be fine, whatever had happened to him. Her niece still needed her. Her fingers slipped on the slick metal of the mist-moistened van, but then she managed to dig in at the edge of the sliding door on the side of the van. Getting her feet on the running board, she prepared to yank the door open. That's when the as-yet unidentified driver, alerted to her presence by the _'__THUNK!__'_ of her landing, swung the van into the nearest tree.

The birch tree sundered explosively against her granite-hard body and the sheet steel of the vehicle, wrecking the doors on that side and dislodging Rosalie. She cursed wildly as she tumbled to the ground amidst birch splinters and a twisted handle from the front passenger door. The other handle was still clenched in her hand, bent into unrecognizability with the force of her grip. Rose flung the handle furiously after the fast-departing van, stuttering obscenities. The black vehicle swerved around the next corner and left her behind. She stood and turned back to find out what had happened to Edward, swearing again when she saw her favorite slacks were ruined in her fall.

"Language, Rose," Edward protested weakly when she got back to his side. He was sitting up, but looked uneager to move further than that. "I hate your niece," he added in a groan, massaging his temples to the sound of grating stone.

"Hey, she's the victim here," Rosalie chided. "Why?" she asked belatedly.

"'cause when she yells for help, she means it," he said. "She called out as loud as she could to her sister, _telepathically,_ a foot from my head, Rose. I'm suddenly reminded of something written by Douglas Adams." He groaned again. She frowned down at him.

"You're the only mind-reader here, _Ed._ What about Douglas Adams?" she huffed, reaching down and hauling him to his feet.

"Something about a made-up drink called a Pan-galactic Gargle Blaster, and the effects of drinking one," he grunted. She grinned; they'd just watched that movie last week with Renesmee, who was on a science-fiction kick.

"Ah yes, so … how do you like 'having your brains smashed in by a twist of lemon, wrapped 'round a large gold brick'?" she quoted as they headed back to the house.

"It's rather like being drunk," he retorted sourly.

"I happen to remember that rather fondly … what's wrong with being drunk?"

"Ask a glass of water …" Edward sighed.

She conceded that one to him, considering she'd been forcibly removed from the pursuit herself with the help of a tree, the splintered remains of one which she remembered planting, no less. It had been there for over forty years, and she'd planted it to commemorate their original first anniversary in the house. She swore to raise one of its seedlings to take its place one day.

In the back of the black van, Cornelia slumped back into unconsciousness, having hit her head against the wheel well when her abductor had swerved into the birch to dislodge Rosalie.

_T/w.i.t.c.h._

They all looked up at the resounding echo from the birch's demise. "Sounds like they caught up with the van at the curve," Emmett said lowly, then continued louder for the humans among them, "I'll go find out what that was." He took off at a 'normal' jog, and as soon as he was out of eyesight of the porch, he poured on vampiric speed.

The C B in Sam's truck let out a burst of static, followed by Sheriff Charlie Swan's voice. _"… __am? __Em, __i__ …'__SQUARK!__' … __ERE?__"_ The radio died with another squeal of feedback, and all those present with keen noses could smell the ozone from fried circuits.

Emily swore softly. "Here, better use this to call him back, Sam," she said, handing him her cell phone. He smiled as he dialed.

Jacob steered the adult Heatherfield Hales back inside and to the kitchen, where he poured each of the distraught parents a stiff shot of Esme's cooking Bourbon. "For the shock," he said reassuringly, doing his best to stay calm before them. He well remembered the cover measures that the Pack had had to institute around the unaware members of their Tribe, especially the parents of the newer young pups among them. Keeping the families 'out of the loop' had been a full-time job for the original five Quileute wolves for a time. Now he had to think back to the care they'd taken to keep Charlie Swan in the dark for as long as they had, dredging up all the tricks he and Edward both had utilized to hide the supernatural from the all-too-human Sheriff.

Harold accepted a second shot of Kentucky Courage from Jake, then a third, still trying to will his hand to stop shaking. That ended after a fourth liberal dose, and he looked up at Jacob sheepishly. "I don't normally drink this much."

"Yeah, well, now's a good time to pretend," Jake told him sympathetically.

Elizabeth, still nursing her second shot, slowly set her glass back down. "At least one of us should stay sober," she said with some reluctance. It was _good_ Bourbon. "In case the Sheriff needs to know anything."

"Hey, that's why I'm here," Peter said, coming in as well. He got his unfinished juice from their interrupted breakfast, and sat down as well. _"__Go __on, __man, __I __got __this,__"_ he muttered next to Jacob's ear while pulling his seat in across from his sweetheart's folks. Jake nodded to him in relief, sliding the Bourbon bottle to Pete's care with his unfettered arm.

"We're all right outside if you need anything," he said to the three of them as he stood up, and then walked back to the front door. He could hear the return of Edward and Rosalie as he got out of the kitchen.


End file.
